


A Burden Heavier Than Life

by PeriPeriwinkle



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Abusive Parents, Child Neglect, Class Swap AU, Demons, M/M, Minor Violence, Saarebas, mentions of body mutilation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2018-08-11 20:49:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 31,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7907224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeriPeriwinkle/pseuds/PeriPeriwinkle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Anyone who takes that burden and lives a good life with it has my respect.</i><br/> </p><p>In another world, in another time, a child from a high-society Altus family is born Soporati, and a Ben Hassrath spy on the making is found to be Saarebas.</p><p>By chance, or perhaps because of a higher yet unknown power, their paths collide, and although impossibly different the two of them find they are, in many ways, very much the same. And so it is that slowly, oh so slowly, they find strength in each other, discover happiness in accepting who they are instead of who society has constantly told them who they should be, and eventually fall deeply and utterly in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Dorian Pavus

**Author's Note:**

> [Ellu](http://tuherrus.tumblr.com) had this idea for an AU on twitter, and it was so good I wanted to run along with it. Thank you so much for letting me write your idea, I am so happy with how it turned out and I hope everyone else likes it just as much as I did. <3

The greatest curse for an Altus child:

No magic.

A curse that Dorian Pavus is a victim of.

Ever since he was little his parents suspected something. Ages five, six, tops, his magic should’ve manifested, but he’s already seven and  _nothing_. Dorian was always a clever child, and soon found out why it was important that he was a mage. His father is one, as is his mother and every other visitor that come to their house, and they talk about non-magic people, like the ones who work in his house, like they are lower, almost meaningless. And naturally, he also sees the way when his parents tell people that he’s a late bloomer, how they hesitate, how their eyes wrinkle in that way that speak of worry. Of apprehension.

So he studies. If he cannot practice the art itself, then he may as well be prepared for it when it comes, right? His father wholeheartedly supports it, sitting down to study next to him, teaching him this and that and excitedly telling him tales of the day his magic will finally manifest, how he’ll feel it at the tip of his fingers, flowing through his body like the blood in his veins, filling him with life. They study long and hard, day and night and long rainy afternoons, and Dorian eats up the knowledge, soaks it up like a dry sponge dipped in water, finds it all fascinating, exciting, and he loves every single word of all the books his father gives him to read. And they wait, with almost baited breath, for the day that his magic will manifest itself.

But it doesn't come.

When he is nine years old, Halward Pavus brings a weird man to their home. He looks Anders from the pictures Dorian’s seen in the books that speak of the lands in Thedas; tall, willowy, ash blonde with dark eyes and a long nose. His skin is freckled and his hair is straight but messy, so long that it reaches all the way down to his elbows. Halward doesn’t try to hide the disgust he feels by allowing him to enter his home, but the mysterious Anders man doesn’t comment on it, just kneels in front of Dorian, his bony knee echoing a low thud in the main hall, robes billowing with his descend.

It’s almost ethereal.

“Hello,” he says, and his voice sounds  _magical_ , so much different from the Tevinter accent he’s so very used to. Dorian has to take a deep sharp breath from all the emotions it makes him feel. “You must be young Dorian Pavus. I’m Ganei. Nice to meet you.”

He extends his hand, bony fingers with long nails, and Dorian takes it, shakes it firmly like his father taught him. This is when he knows he should introduce himself, but he finds he cannot find his voice properly. The man’s presence is almost overwhelming, and well, he _does_ knows his name already. He hopes his parents let this one slide.

“You father says the library is your favorite place, is it not?” He asks, and Dorian nods brusquely. The man then stands, and it’s like watching a bird of prey extend its wings, slow and precise and utterly  _beautiful_. He reaches down towards Dorian, a small smile stretching his thin lips. “Will you take me there? I’d love to see your books.”

Dorian grabs onto the man’s hand, ignoring his mother’s disapproving glare – he’s been told one too many times that he’s far too old to be taking adult’s hands like this, but it feels  _right_ somehow. He leads the way, the man walking slowly by his side, and when he pushes the big oak doors that lead to the library Ganei asks him what he’s currently studying. Dorian immediately starts on a quiet spiel about the book his father recently purchased about mortalitasi magic, all the way from Nevarra, how he finds that part of their culture  _fascinating_ , and before he knows it almost half of a whole hour has gone according to the hourglass that sits on his desk.

“I’m sorry,” Dorian mutters, turning the hourglass around, and Ganei shakes his head.

“Don’t apologize Dorian. I agree, it _is_ fascinating.”

From the door, Halward clears his throat loudly. Dorian startles, tensing up; he knows from experience that it is not a good sign, that he’s losing what little patience he has. Ganei nods, once, almost solemn.

“Please, Dorian. Have a seat, wherever you’d like.”

So he does, goes to the long chair that rests beneath the window, and Ganei sits next to him. Dorian is suddenly nervous, but the man keeps a polite distance and his parents are at the door, watching carefully, so he knows it’s okay.

“I’m going to use magic on you, Dorian. Nothing that will harm you. I just want to check something.”

“You want to see if I have magic too, right?” He asks, quietly, so only Ganei can hear him, and the man chuckles, a small and kind smile on his lips.

“Precisely. You’re a sharp boy.”

“Thank you,” Dorian whispers, blushing, then lowers his head. Ganei takes a deep breath, raises his hands, which glow a soft pink, and places them inches above Dorian’s head. Something itches on Dorian’s nose and prickles on the back of his neck, and he shuts his eyes tightly, because this is it. The moment they’ve been waiting for, for so, so long.

He tries to tell himself that the answer, whichever it is, won’t matter. That his parents will still love him no matter what. That things will continue the way they’re supposed to.

Dorian was never again proven more wrong.

Ganei tells him in a hushed voice that he does not, in fact, have a connection to the fade like mages do, and Dorian’s eyes fill up with tears. He consoles him, tells him there is nothing wrong with that, and hugs him tightly. Says his goodbyes and rises from the couch, closing the library door behind him.

It is the first and last time Dorian ever sees the beautiful yet strange man, but Dorian remembers it as the tipping point in his life.

First thing that happens is the coldness that his parents regard him with after that day. He hears them shouting more often than is usual, and he knows it’s always about him, always, always, always. If it’s his mother that cannot bear another child or Halward that cannot produce one remains a mystery, but they blame each other anyways, at the top of their lungs for anyone who might be in earshot to hear. Then they throw the blame of Dorian around, like he’s a _thing_  instead of a child. He’s _your_  son, disgraceful, shameful. It’s _your_  fault, _your_  genes. _Your_ family line, I always knew you were no good for heirs, should’ve known. Despicable. Disgraceful. Unacceptable. Dorian pulls his blankets and pillow over his head and hopes the shouting stops, but it rarely ever does before he falls asleep to uneasy dreams of snarling, twisted faces that grow nuzzles and spit fire through their fangs.

Soon his father stops coming to their study lessons. Dorian reads alone, for hours on end, hoping he’ll come, then wishing. Then accepting. He sometimes does join him, but he’s not the same man from Dorian’s early childhood. He’s stricter, less playful, more rigid. Colder. Barely even smiles. Looks at Dorian when he thinks he’s not looking like a man in grief. Like Dorian has an incurable disease that will soon kill him.

His mother avoids him altogether, only interacting with him through clipped sentences during dinner, drinking more than Dorian, even at his young age, knows that is wise. Even her glare is different now, less disapproving but blanker, somehow. It unnerves Dorian. Makes him shiver and hide and wring his hands together, to which she slaps them down, barks at him to stop at once. _Know your manners ._

And Dorian always does knows his manners, always, always, always, even if it never makes a lick of a difference.

As his tenth birthday fast approaches, Halward and Aquinea call Dorian for a talk, which he braces himself to, replaying over and over in his mind whatever he might’ve done to ensure a scolding. He goes, sits down on one of their loveseats, impossibly nervous. They sit on the couch opposite him, far from each other, backs straight and eyes hard as stone.

Over the table between them a slave places, gently, a shorter than usual mage staff.

“Dorian,” Halward starts, and Dorian tears his eyes away from the staff to look at his father. “As you may know, your tenth birthday is coming soon.”

He nods, nervous. Tries not to let his confusion show.

“We have decided to tell people that your magic has finally manifested,” he continues, and Dorian widens his eyes. “It is unacceptable for a man, son of two of the most powerful mage lines in Tevinter, to be a Soporati. So we will tell everyone that you are, in fact, a mage, and we expect you to cooperate.”

Not hope, not want.  _Expect._ Dorian knows he has no choice but to accept.

“Yes, father,” he says, gulping, and Halward nods. Gestures to the staff silently, and Dorian leans forward to take it.

Nothing happens when he wraps his fingers around it, and it’s almost a disappointment. His father spoke so many times of the feeling of holding a staff for the first time, to channel your magic and feel it growing tenfold, like rising at the top of a mountain and roaring like a lion only to find out you are actually a  _dragon._ But there is none of that, of course. The wood is smooth and cold beneath his fingers, the Pavus crest carved near the grip. The end is blunt and the top has a crystal that looks bland and unimpressive.

“The staff isn’t magic, of course, and the crystal is just a plain one. It’s just to maintain appearances,” Halward says, and Dorian looks back at them, but they’re already getting up from their spots. “We will discuss how you will hold yourself through the party later.”

Dorian nods, looks back down at the staff in his hands. It is perfectly balanced, and although plain, it is pretty. Holding it feels  _right,_  despite it all, and Dorian smooths his hands over the wood, over and over again.

He stays in that room long after his parents are gone, and wonders, _why me._

The party, of course, goes without a hitch. He’s introduced to people he’s never seen before, shakes the hand of dozens that he has, and smiles politely at all the congratulations he receives. At an announcement to the room at large, Halward informs the crowd that he will be tutoring his son from home, so he can learn the best from the best. Many people laugh, and everyone applauds.

Most of them, however, just whisper.

Ah, but Dorian knows of whispers. Like a snake, they slither and crawl and bite, ruthless and merciless. In Tevinter, his mother once said as a precautionary tale, all snakes are venomous. And it is true. If there are whispers, then they are never a sign of anything good.

Dorian knows that, had he any magic, that he’d go learn how to control it properly at a mage circle. And everyone else knows this, too. Halward explains the homeschooling as a way to prevent further issues to his son’s health, which is, unfortunately, fragile, but no one has ever seen or heard that the boy was ever so drastically ill before. Why now? What has changed?

Dorian ignores the insults, the gossip, the arguments his parents still have. As the years go by and he gets used to the ways of Tevinter Socialites, he lets it all slide off his shoulder like water over a duck’s back. He perfects the Pavus way of being: polite, assertive, proud. Chin up and smile in place. A scowl at a perfectly timed moment, a chuckle at this or that comment. He studies harder and talks about the theories he reads about as if he’s practiced them dozens of times. Promises demonstrations that he know he will never go through with, and although gossip runs havok, no one is ever the wiser.

A perfect heir. If only for one flaw.

But there’s only so many books one can read and only so much pretending one can do before getting tired of it all. He suggests to his father that he picks up a different hobby, since the incoming of books can no longer keep up with how fast he reads them all. Maybe dance, or music? Perhaps cooking?

“No, absolutely not!” His father bellows loudly at Dorian’s face when he is only thirteen. “These are all tasks done by  _slaves,_  boy! I will not let you steep so low! You will  _not_ embarrass me further!”

Dorian seethes with rage, but says nothing. Instead, he turns around and locks himself in the library. Refuses dinner. Stays there and naps at the love chair until deep into the night, long after his parents have stopped screaming and are already asleep.

His growling stomach wakes him, and he groans. Slowly, he pads his way through the house, sneaks into the kitchens. No one is around, naturally, so he opens the pots and pans that lay around the place and serves himself with a cold portion of leftovers. Everything is fantastic as always, and he hops to sit at the edge of the slaves' plain wooden table, content for the moment to just enjoy his meal and not think of anything else.

He hears voices while he’s eating his second serving, and at first he thinks of running, but before he acts on it two of the guards that keep vigil of his house come through the kitchen doors. They stop speaking as soon as they see Dorian, smiles dropping, and bow slightly with their hands by their sides.

“Young master,” the one at the front says, almost out of breath. “May we be of assistance? Do you need anything?”

“Uh, no, I’m good,” Dorian says, swallowing. He knows that he shouldn’t be at their quarters, their only safe haven, and suddenly he feels awkward for intruding. “Sorry, I shouldn’t-- I’ll just leave and finish this in my room.”

“Nonsense! Please, feel free to--”

“ _Quiet.”_

Dorian freezes, feet already on the floor, hand gripping the table’s edge tightly. Both men step aside to let an older elvhen woman come through, and Dorian swallows a lump in his throat. She’s the senior guard at their residence; an older mage, her short hair white and face littered with expression marks. Although slightly faded, from this up close he sees the telltale of a light green vallasin on her face, something he’d never noticed before.

She steps up with firm and measured steps, stands right in front of Dorian, both hands clasped behind her back. Dorian shivers, and the woman frowns at him like he is a particularly nasty grime on top of her shoe.

“How _dare_ you invade our quarters,” she hisses, and Dorian feels the blood draining from his face.

“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t think--”

“Damn right you didn’t,” she snarls again, then straightens up. “What do you  _want._ Speak, and leave us be.”

Dorian opens his mouth, about to apologize again, when a thought occurs to him. He sees the short swords at the hip of the guards and the long, bladed staff strapped at her back. He lifts his chin, just that little bit, and stands up straight. It is now or never.

“Can you teach me how to fight?”

The woman widens her eyes, clearly taken aback by the unexpected question. She regains her composure quickly, eyeing Dorian with narrowed eyes, and in turn he tries his best not to move, allows her to evaluate him. Maker knows his houseguests do it to her often enough.

“Why?” she asks, voice dripping with venom.

“Something to do, besides studying,” Dorian shrugs. “Always thought I’d learn to fight with my staff, but. You know. Father rarely ever lets me have it around, unless we have guests.”

“Why me, then? Why not ask your father for a proper teacher?”

Dorian bites his bottom lip. Better to be sincere, he thinks. “I did ask him to allow me to learn some sort of fight. He refused. Said it was a slave’s activity, not an Altus’.”

She lifts a single brow, seemingly intrigued. “So you decided to ask a slave, instead.”

Dorian straightens his back further, squares his shoulders again. He feels nervous sweat gather at his brow under her judging glare. “Mother and father trust you. And I’ve seen you fight before, with your staff and without your magic. It’s impressive. And father doesn’t know about this; he’d probably have me grounded just for being here in the first place. I’m asking  _you,_  ma’am.”

A long couple of minutes of silence drag between them. Dorian never breaks eye contact, hopefully to show he’s serious about it, and she watches him right back, eyes sharp and cold, assessing whether or not he’s serious.

“You could’ve simply  _ordered_ me to do it, Pavus. I wouldn’t say no if you did so. I’m your  _slave._ ” She finally says, voice low, arms crossing across her front. Dorian winces as if he’s been physically hit.

“You’re not my slave.” She raises her brow further up, and Dorian scratches his neck. “Well, okay, maybe by proxy. But you’re my dad’s, not mine.” A pause. Dorian gulps. “And you can say no, if you don’t want to teach me. I’ll understand.”

At that, she seems to deflate, dropping her arms and sighing out heavily.

“This is a fine line you’re threading, young Pavus.” She says, shaking her head. “Your father will have both our heads if he ever finds out, but very well.” Dorian perks up, presses his lips together to hold back a huge grin he feels is coming. The head guard, however, doesn’t hide hers. “Your father will be out tomorrow, young rebel child. Meet me ten minutes after the gates close, at the back yard, after the vine orchard.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Dorian exclaims, saluting happily, and she snorts.

“Finish your dinner and scram,” she says, walking past him, the two guards following her steps with slightly stunned expressions. Dorian is so happy he doesn’t even hesitate; he scrapes the plate, washes it on the sink, wincing at the cold water, then dashes up the stairs to his bedroom.

That night, he dreams about a lion standing on a mountain top, challenging a dragon and _winning ._

\---

Dorian wakes the next day with a spring on his step. If his father takes note, he doesn’t say it, or perhaps he figures it’s just Dorian’s still childish way of being glad he’ll be home alone for the entire week. Dorian snorts at the thought. Their manor is so big he could very well avoid his father all week long should he well want it. Perhaps part of it is correct: he _is_ glad his parents will be out. But it is for an entirely different assumption.

Ten minutes after their carriage has pulled out, Dorian changes into a pair of loose fitted trousers and an old sleeveless shirt that sticks to his chest. He walks out to the back garden at the meeting point with his fake mage staff in hand, and there she is: a band on her forehead to keep her short fringe pulled back, a training staff in another. She watches him approach, and when he’s close enough, he bows his head.

“Thank you for doing this,” Dorian says, and when he looks back up, she’s eyeing him warily.

He allows her to, much like the day before, and once she seems satisfied with what she sees she takes stance. “Let us begin, then,” she says, and Dorian nods.

Training is harder than Dorian predicted. The staff she has looks heavy, but she wields it as if it weighs nothing at all. Dorian struggles to deflect her blows, but she is patient, and shows him how to copy and defend himself from her moves, how to position himself, how to hold and swing the staff in his hand. They go at it for hours, and by the time Dorian goes back inside he is hungry and aches all over, and the moment his head hits the pillow he is out like a light.

The next day Dorian wakes earlier than he wishes, dragging himself out of bed. She meets him outside just as the sun is coming up and teaches him how to do basic strength exercises, correcting his stances and pushing him to go further. By the end of thirty minutes he’s gasping for air and shaking.

“Pathetic,” she sneers, shaking her head. “Catch your breath and go eat something. Meet me here after lunch, at the same time as yesterday.”

Dorian whines, his limbs feeling like lead. One of the house slaves comes and helps him get to his feet, drawing him a bath before he finally goes and eats the fruits they’ve laid out for him for breakfast.

“Is she... troubling you, master?” The slave asks as he pulls Dorian’s chair back. “I could always report her behavior to master Hal--”

“ _No!_  No, don’t do that,” Dorian shrieks, jumping and turning around. The young elf startles, tightening his grip on the chair. “She’s doing it because I asked her to. She’s not forcing me. _Please_ don’t tell my dad about this, or we’re both gonna be in so much trouble.”

“Of course,” the slave replies, bowing his head, and Dorian sighs, relieved. And as he nibbles on a slice of mango, feeling his muscles throb, he wonders how many more days of this he can possibly take.

Not many, it seems.

That very afternoon training lasts for half the time it did the day before, Dorian’s arms and legs giving up on him. The next day he wakes and goes to morning exercises again, but instead of thirty minutes all he lasts for is ten. The head guard screams at him, calls him weak, and Dorian can do little more but agree as he gasps for air, tears streaming down the side of his face. She walks away, stomping her feet, and Dorian once again accepts the help of the slave to get up, no matter how much he wishes he could stay lying in the grass all night long.

He dutifully returns after lunch, though, and by the look on her face, she’s mildly surprised. Dorian takes his stance, grips his staff, and tries not to let it show how hard he’s shaking.

She deflates, shaking her head.

“All day inside your rooms, reading and preening, made you a weak child,” she tells him in a soft voice, and Dorian flushes with embarrassment. “You have a lot of work to do. Are you sure you don’t want to give up?”

“Positive,” Dorian says, still keeping his stance, and she smiles, just the lightest uptil of her lips.

“Very well. Let’s go again, then.”

Dorian notices she goes slower this training session, and although still sore, Dorian manages to finish all three hours, and goes to bed with a smile on his lips.

The week goes by and his parents return home. While they cannot meet daily for their practice, Dorian is instructed to do his morning exercises religiously, for at least an hour instead of the usual thirty minutes. He does so, adding another extra hour in the afternoon to his routine, just so he won’t be left standing around.

After a couple of weeks, late at night, one of the night guards comes and beckons him out of the library. Curious, Dorian follows, tiptoeing in the dark. After entering the slave’s quarters, the man takes him down two sets of stairs and pushes open a heavy oaken door, where inside is the sound of cheery laughter and people shouting. Next to the door is _her ._

“I’ve brought him as you requested,” the guard says, and she smiles.

“Very well. Welcome, Dorian.”

Dorian gawks.

The place is a wide, warm room, with two plain wooden tables that were pushed against the walls. Most of the slaves that work in the house are there, sitting in chairs or leaning against the walls, drinking from tankards and watching the spectacle in the middle of the room, where two men are sparring with wooden staffs much like the head guard’s, everyone cheering and shouting and whistling as they circle each other and inflict hits on one another.

What catches Dorian’s attention, however, are their  _bodies._ One of the man is elvhen; lithe, tall, but with prominent abs and biceps. The other is human, and although he’s shorter than the elf, he’s definitely wider, bulkier, much hairier than his opponent. The crowd cheers as the elf sweeps his staff under the human’s feet, making him lose his balance and collapse to the floor. Next to him, the head guard chuckles.

“Get up, you dirty dog,” she screams, laughing, and the man winces as the lithe elf gives him a hand to get up.

“Shut up, old hag,” he retorts, making the room at large “ _wooo_ ” at him, but she just laughs more.

“Let’s see how sharp your tongue is after I make you bite on it.”

Dorian looks up, dazed, and she just waves her head, amused. The whole room slowly starts to notice Dorian’s presence, and some become weary, others get more silent, but she... she just looks down at him and gives him a grin.

“We’ll be practicing here from now on, away from your father’s prying eyes. I hope that’s alright with you, kid.”

Dorian nods, dazed, and is given a simple outfit and a plain staff, much longer and heavier than his current one. “Go change,” she says. “Privy’s that way.”

Her name, he later finds, is Maren.

He hears people shouting it across the room which becomes as familiar to Dorian as his library. He never gives his studies up, but at the same time, he keeps up with his daily exercises and training. His parents don’t notice the change in his body or mood; rarely do they pay attention to him in the first place, so Dorian’s not surprised. But he sees it himself, and so does the slaves that tend to the household.

He’s stronger, his arms filling out as his growth spurt hits him head on. His clothes start to not fit him anymore, and when the tailor comes, he raises a brow at Dorian’s shape, but doesn’t comment on it. Deep down, Dorian’s proud of himself.

The slaves start treating him like one of them after enough months of daily visits to their quarters. Even the most suspicious ones, like the gardener, start greeting him with smiles - that is, when his parents aren’t around. Dorian’s acquaintance with his house’s slaves becomes his most well-kept secret, as well as his most dangerous one. He cannot bear to think what his father would do if he ever discovered that he’s been making friends with them.

And there, too, is where Dorian discovers himself.

His muscles ache less with each passing day, and his movements are constantly more and more precise, swifter and stronger. Maren smiles at him, compliments on how fast he’s learned, how much better he’s gotten, and Dorian beams with pride. He feels _alive_ wielding the staff, spinning it in his hands and smashing it against his opponent's.

And  _oh,_  his  _opponents._

Dorian watches and participates in the fights that happen every day. And he’s lost quite a few of them too, too entranced by the view of sweaty chests, thick necks, rippling abs, thrown to the ground on his ass until he’s left blinking up at the ceiling, bewildered and, quite frankly, too hot to blame it on the exercise and the closed up room alone. And quickly he notices that he doesn’t react this way at all when he looks at the younger girls, even when they’re dressed down, breasts exposed, legs in show, even when the other boys seem to look with amazement as the girls tease them and tug them into hidden corners.

There, Dorian discovers himself, for the better or worse.

He learns with the sons and daughters of the house slaves that it is ok to be whoever he is, like whoever he likes. To embrace his identity and never be ashamed of it. A young elf called Alim, same age as he, is his first crush at age fifteen; many nights he spends hiding from Maren in dark corners and even in the boy’s bed, dry humping and kissing until they are both breathless.

At sixteen, Halward announces his engagement to Livia Herathinos, a friend of the family, and Dorian’s reaction is immediate.

“I refuse.”

The room at large seems to hold its breath. Halward turns to Dorian, eyes wide, while Aquinea seems to hold herself back to not shatter the glass in her hand.

“I beg your pardon?” Halward sneers, the slave behind him retreating slowly, and Dorian gulps.

“I... find no interest in women. Thus I do not wish to marry one, father.”

“ _Ha!_ ” Halward barks out, then bares his teeth, like a rabid animal. Dorian remains nonplussed, although his heart rate speeds up with nervousness. “What you  _want,_  boy, what you like, doesn’t matter! You have a duty to this family, to your lineage! You may have not been a mage to become my heir, but you will marry Livia, and you will give me Altus grandchildren to inherit my seat in the Magisterium, so help me Andraste!”

“ _No_ , I will not.” Dorian says again, as serious as he can, glare soft but just as fierce as his father’s. On the other end of the table Aquinea sets down her glass.

“Now, Dorian. Be reasonable. You very well know this is not something you have a _choice_ in.”

“I do not have a choice in my own  _life?_ My own  _future?_ ” he lashes out, and Aquinea drops her fake smile. Dorian huffs. “Marriage is for the rest of my days, and I know who I am, and who I am is not a person who will be happily married to a woman. I will not--”

_ WHAM.  _ Halward’s fist, smoking with fire, bangs on the table, rattles glasses and cutlery alike. Dorian jumps on his seat.

“ _That is enough_ , young man. You may go to your rooms. We will discuss this later.”

“I _won’t_ \--”

“ _Later_. Now  _leave_.”

For a tense second everyone believes Dorian might refuse. But he sees the apprehensive expressions of the slaves around him, and concedes, stomping his feet through the floor.

_ Later, _  it happens, doesn’t come too soon.

The very next day Dorian wakes up to find his parents are gone for the week. He walks past the dining table and sees a scorch mark where his father’s hand connected with the wood, like a brand.  _We control your life,_  it says to Dorian, making him shake with anger.

So he tries harder to rebel against his family. He starts exercising in broad daylight, shirtless against the harsh Tevinter sun to showcase his toned body to anyone who might dare to believe this is his first time doing what his parents call “a slave’s activity”, hitting his staff against trees or makeshift dummies he makes out of empty flour sacks. It infuriates Halward, which leads to many heated discussions and arguments, but he never concedes; when Halward believe he’s won, Dorian makes another dummy, writes down “Magisterium” across its head, and plummets it until it’s nothing but rags and coarse sand - right in front of the visitors Halward has over for brunch.

He flees the house to escape his father’s wrath, drinking himself to almost topor in any shady bar he can find, and only returns a whole day later, locking himself in his room.

At seventeen he starts sneaking out of the house more, attending to underground brawl bars in the Soporati district, and sometimes the slave quarters in the town’s gladiator arena. Word spreads quickly about the young Altus boy that mingles with the lowlife, sparring and scurrying and even frolicking with the older man that attend to these places, and Halward keeps confronting and threatening Dorian to no avail, until he’s too tired to do so.

So he sends him away when he’s eighteen, to magister Alexius, as a student and apprentice.

“Dorian,” Maren tells him the day before he is due to leave for Maker knows how long. She puts her hands over his shoulders, now so much higher up than hers, and Dorian wonders when she started looking so  _small_ when she was so much bigger than he ever was. “Never forget. Do not be proud of your heritage, ma’vhenan. Not of your surname. Be proud of  _who you are._ And who you are is a good man.”

She wipes the tears that escape the corner of his eyes, lets her kiss each one of his cheeks in quick succession. Then the room at large bursts into cheers, and at the slave’s quarters they party all night long. He makes out with Alim at some point, for old time’s sake, and both of them smile and hug and dance, and not for the first time Dorian wishes he could do more for these people, trapped inside this ridiculously ostentatious palace that he can barely even call home.

Dorian hops onto his horse the next day without a wink of sleep, sadder than he’s been in ages. But he rides on.

He’s met Alexius’ son, Felix, once in a party. The boy was shy, but had a gorgeous smile. He was, unfortunately, the gossip of the evening: a mage, but only just barely. The boy’s abilities are subpar at best, and nonexistent at worse, so he makes up for it by excelling in mathematics, which he studies in the University of Orlais. His skills are impressive despite not being magical, which means that it impresses absolutely no one in the magisterium. They feel like Felix is a failure, and that Gereon should’ve simply tried harder to teach him magic. Bent and beat him until he broke.

Dorian can understand Felix. He feels like they’ll be good friends.

Once at the Alexius family manor, Dorian finds himself shocked; Gereon greets him with a warm smile and open arms, and hugs him tightly as if Dorian is his long lost son. Next to him stands Livia, his wife, and she greets him much the same way.

“Welcome to our home, Dorian,” she says, tucking a stray hair behind his ear. Behind him, Gereon helps two servants -  _servants,_  Gereon corrects Dorian when he calls them slaves,  _we do not own any slaves in the Alexius manor_ \- take his bags and lead his horse away. “I hope you enjoy your time with our family.”

“The feeling is mutual,” he says, easily slipping on a smile, and Livia rolls her eyes playfully.

“Come, now. None of these theatrics here. In my house I wish for nothing but sincerity.”

“Of course,” Dorian nods, once. He knows he’ll probably not abide by this rule after all, but the glint in Livia’s eyes tells him she thinks otherwise.

He meets all six of Livia’s apprentices; four girls and two boys, all around his age. The research on time magic theory has been going steady, but Livia expects a dead end soon.

“Which is where you come in,” she says. “Gereon has been doing a wonderful job, but he’s also stuck. He could use a fresh and younger mind.”

“Your father told me many great things about you, Dorian,” Gereon tells him later as Dorian is unfolding his clothes and hanging them on the wardrobe Gereon got for him, inside the room he’ll be sharing with Felix. “He told me about your lack of magic, but to me that doesn’t matter. If you’re half as brilliant as your father claims you are with magic theory, then you’ll help me tremendously.”

Dorian blushes, pretends to straighten the shoulder of one of his robes. He’s speechless; he had no idea anyone outside his home knew about his lack of magic, or that Dorian’s father spoke so greatly of him.

It could also be that he did so so Gereon would agree more readily to take him in. Dorian brushes these thoughts aside and turns around, smiling gently.

“Thank you,” he says, bowing his head slightly. “I hope my aid in your research bears us fruit, Alexius.”

“That’s what I’m hoping for,” he smiles, clapping Dorian on the back.

And bear fruit it does.

Dorian finds that Alexius is a great research companion. They spend days upon days and hours upon hours reading and discussing the contents of the books he has in his vast library, arguing back and forth about this theory or that. Alexius constantly tells Dorian how glad he is for his help, how his unique point of view is something he hadn’t even considered, how much he needed the assistance of someone like Dorian and never even noticed. Someone with a fresher mind.

It reminds Dorian of the days he used to spend studying with his father, but not really. Alexius is much more affectionate, doesn’t care the tiniest bit that he’s not a mage, and openly expresses his love for his wife, randomly embracing and even kissing her throughout the day. Their marriage is most definitely a happy one, so unlike the one his mother and father share, that a warmth grows within him, nice but uncomfortable at the same time. That’s what he wants for himself, not some sort of political arrangement. Gereon confesses that marrying the woman he loves meant he didn’t have heirs as powerful as the magisterium aims for, nor the best political connections, but he cares very little about it all. All he cares about is his family, Livia and Felix, and he’ll do whatever it takes to keep them happy and safe.

Despites his busy days and sometimes even nights, Dorian exercises every day before bed for as long as two hours to make up for the fact that he cannot spar with anyone, more out of habit and to burn the nervous energy he sometimes gathers throughout the day, and in the silence of his room, with only his restless thoughts for company, he wonders if he’ll ever have a family like Gereon’s.

Oh, how he hopes so.

Five months in Dorian sees Felix again. Gereon and Livia had traveled a week before to pick him up from Orlais so he can spend summer vacations at his home in Tevinter with his family. However, Livia arrives at the mansion slightly shaky, looking all the gladder to finally be back home.

“I’m fine. But I think we saw a hurlock on our way back,” She explains, wiping her brow with her scarf. Gideon scoffs.

“Nonsense, dear! It was probably a bear. And you have me; nothing happened and nothing would’ve happened anyway.”

“May the Maker protect us all,” she whispers, retreating to her quarters accompanied by a servant, and Felix hops down the carriage, extending his hand. Dorian shakes it, gripping tightly. Felix smiles.

“I’m Felix,” he introduces himself, and as Dorian opens his mouth, he continues. “And you’re Dorian, the guy guarding my room while I’m away, aren’t you?”

“Oh, ah, I...” Dorian stutters, and Felix laughs.

“I’m just messing with you. I’ve always wanted a roommate. Come on, I bet dad hasn’t shown you around the orchard properly. You seem like a guy who appreciates eating ripe fruits fresh off the branch.”

“And what, exactly, is that supposed to mean?!” Dorian retorts, scoffing, but Felix is already walking away, laughing out loud.

And so it is that Dorian and Felix become good friends. Felix tells him about his work with advanced calculus and mathematics, Dorian tells him about the time magic work he’s doing with his father and his research on mortalitasi, and eventually the subject shifts to Dorian’s passion for sparring.

“It’s something to do, besides studying. Something to help me burn out pent up energy,” he explains, handing his plain wooden staff to Felix, the same one Maren gave to him so many years ago. “The head guard in our house taught me. Just-- don’t tell my father that.”

“Noted,” Felix says, smiling as he tries - and fails - to spin the staff around rather clumsily. Dorian laughs, and grabs it from the floor.

“Here, I’ll teach you,” he says, and shows Felix how to do it.

Three months pass, Felix goes back to Orlais, and Gereon learns about his hobby. Dorian suspects Felix must’ve told him, and although at first he’s apprehensive of the man’s reaction, once again the magister proves to be everything Halward Pavus is not: he swears secrecy, arranges a room in his manor for Dorian to practice and exercise, and even gifts him with a real weapon: a double sided bladed staff made out of dragonbone, enchanted with strength and swiftness runes.

“Consider it a thank you, for all you’ve done for me,” he says, and Dorian bites lip so he doesn’t cry.

He wonders how he can ever thank the Alexius for all _they’ve_ done for him.

The years pass, and Dorian falls into a routine. Between his studies, his training, and the eventual leisure time the Alexius family forces all their apprentices to enjoy, Dorian grows comfortable. Felix returns twice a year to the manor, once for winter and once for summer, spends three months each season, then goes back to Orlais. They become best friends, exchanging letters constantly, and Dorian sees in Gereon the father he’s never had, in Livia the mother he always wished for, in Felix the younger brother he never knew he wanted, in the apprentices under Livia’s wings the group of scholar friends he never knew he missed so much. Gereon and Dorian’s research grows steady, and they all feel that a breakthrough is just about to happen, and all at once Dorian feels giddy with excitement and cold with dread.

It is winter once again, and Dorian is traveling with Livia and Gereon back to their manor with Felix. Dorian enjoys the ride, appreciating the wonderful landscapes between Tevinter and Orlais, but most of all he appreciates the time with the family more than he probably should. They insist he’s not intruding, but sometimes he cannot shake the feeling that he is. He _isn’t_ family, after all. Just an apprentice. A student. Nothing more.

What will happen once they finish their research, he wonders? Will Gereon send him back to his home that isn’t a home anymore, to his cold family that cares not for him like they do, and never will?

Dorian is absently thumbing the runes carved on the length of the newest battle staff he got for his twenty-fourth birthday from Felix – a beautiful thing made of silverite and gold, intricate with swirling designs and embedded with magical protections, courtesy from Gereon and Livia, two long and sharp blades on each end, light as a feather yet as resilient as pure diamond. He is entranced, distracted, when he hears a sound, a loud, piercing screech, coming from the woods that frame their path.

“What was that?” He asks, and they all widen their eyes.

“Maybe we should--”

Whatever Felix was about to say is silenced by the horses coming to a grinding halt, whining loudly as the carriage driver shrieks up ahead.

“ _Darkspawn!!!_ ”

“Impossible,” Gereon breathes out, voice tight, but still he fetches his staff and looks out the window. But there it is; a horde of at least a dozen monsters, with rotting flesh and blank eyes, armed to the teeth, marching forth from between the trees as if sprouting from deep within the forest, circling their carriage.

Dorian curses.

“Gereon!” Livia shouts when the man jumps out the carriage, staff high overhead.

“ _You will not harm my family, you monsters!_ ” He screams, creating a barrier around the carriage. Dorian fumbles before jumping out through the other door, watching Gereon. The monsters scream and attack, scratching wildly at the barrier, trying to force their way through.

“Livia!” Dorian shouts, “Give Gereon your magic, help him keep the barrier up!”

“Dorian, what are you--”

“ _Just do it!_ ” He insists as he walks to the very edge of the barrier, and she scrambles to reach for her staff.

A Hurlock stares at him right in the eye through the shimmering barrier, then opens his gaping, fanged maw and screams, spit flying and stopping midair. Dorian gulps as he feels his blood run cold.

He grips his brand new weapon tightly with both hands, makes a short prayer for Andraste to protect them all, and attacks.

From inside the barrier his blade runs through as if it didn’t exist, and Dorian stabs three darkspawn in quick succession through the neck, watching them crumple to the floor. The ones around see their fellows fall and screech louder, attaching the field with more ferocity. Dorian jams the blade, trying to connect as they dodge, expecting the blow, again and again and again, and although they don’t fall he forces them to draw back.

Behind him, Livia and Gereon gasp, and the barrier shifts. The poor carriage driver whimpers, and the horses stomp their feet.

They cannot hold the barrier much longer.

Right. Not much to be done.

Dorian roars, drawing the attention of three darkspawn, and jumps off the barrier’s edge. Faintly he hears someone scream his name, but he pays it no mind, focusing solely on the fight before him.

Spin, duck, shift. The blade connects with an ankle, cuts cleanly through rotten bone, making a shriek fall. Behind him, he stabs the other end of his staff blindly on a gut, spins, throws the bleeding body onto another that’s running towards him. He ignores those three on the floor in favor of charging the one nearest to him, pushes it away with the middle of his staff, spins the blades and cuts two approaching darkspawn cleanly in half. Turns around, spears the three monsters still struggling to get up from the floor through their heads, holds back the bile on the back of his throat at the sound of their insides squelching.

Behind him, he hears a loud thump, and when he looks he sees the darkspawn he’d pushed away trying to claw through a fresh barrier around him.

“Dorian, quickly!” Gereon screams, and Dorian takes the opportunity to cut through the neck of the monster, let its head fall to the floor. Three more are charging towards Livia and Gereon, and though Felix is batting them away with his own staff he can’t do much more than that.

Dorian roars, distracts the monsters, makes them focus on  _him_ , and charges.

Through the whole fight, all he can think about is  _not them. Not my family._ He keeps in mind Maren’s training and that one time he had three gladiators challenge him at the same time, twirling yet keeping both eyes open, both hands gripping the staff tightly. He barely notices when the fight ends, his blade mindlessly cutting through the head of a genlock, his fingers slipping on the gore that drips over his fists as he turns around, expecting to be cornered again only to find the monsters are all dead.

When the last darkspawn falls, silence falls with it.

It weighs heavy in the air, like acrid smoke. Dorian is breathing heavily, sweating and panting, dizzy with the lack of air and the ache in his limbs. His legs and arms are covered in gore, and his staff, his brand new staff, is in such a state that he can barely look at it. He drops it to the floor, and as if the clang of the metal connecting to the stone path flips a switch, Livia _wails ._

“ _Dorian!_ Oh, Dorian, are you alright?” She cries, asking over and over again, hugging him tightly. Dorian goes almost limp onto her hold, lets her grip his shoulders, watches as a bewildered Gereon hugs Felix, as the carriage driver lies back on his seat and waves his hat like a fan over his face.

They’re all alive, and without a scratch.

His _family. Alive._

“You  _saved_ us,” Gereon says once he lets go of Felix, and Livia peels off of him to hug her son, to allow her husband to grip Dorian’s shoulders with his hands, cold against Dorian’s too warm skin. “ _Son_. You  _saved us all_.”

Without waiting for a reply, Gereon hugs him too, nearly cracks all his ribs. Dorian, still speechless, wheezes out by his ear, gasps. Lifts his utterly filthy hands in the ar.

“I think... I’d like a bath now,” he whispers, breathless, and Gereon laughs.

They drive to the nearest river to wash, Dorian diving into the cold water without a care for once in his life, and for the first and most certainly not the last time, Gereon tells the story of how Dorian of house Pavus saved his oldest servant and entire family from a small horde of darkspawn to a few wandering travelers that happen to meet them by the riverbank.

Dorian smiles shyly through it all, and scrubs the gore off his staff.

From that day on, everything changes for Dorian. He feels part of the Alexius family, not so much an intruder anymore. Their research finally reaches a tipping point, the tests with time magic he performs with Dorian all prove efficient, and Gereon becomes apprehensive, worries what people with bad intentions might use his magic for.

“Maybe it’s best this remains only between us,” he says, writing his findings in a book that he plans on putting away in his library, if only for safekeeping. Dorian smiles. He knows a number of magisters who wouldn't hesitate to use this magic for their own benefit, and feels proud of Gereon for being the best man.

Felix finishes his studies in Orlais, and to celebrate, all four of them travel to Nevarra, where they take Dorian to see the work of their most famous mortalitasi, much to his awe. After that, they ship back to the capital of Tevinter, attend to shows and visit museums and restaurants for a few weeks, and when Dorian comes back to their manor they still study, but not with so much fervor now that Gereon’s most important work is finally finished.

Which is when Dorian should’ve suspected something in hindsight. But things felt so perfect he didn’t think anything of his happiness.

Halward sends Gereon a letter a week before Dorian’s twenty-sixth birthday, demanding he go back home, allegedly so he can spend his birthday at the house he hasn’t gone back to in nearly eight years. Dorian pales, feels sick to his core. Gereon cannot go against Halward’s wishes, Dorian knows that, and the letter was much too polite to have anyone suspect anything. Halward is just a father who wants to see his son again, after all.

Oh, but Dorian knows a lie when he sees one.

The Alexius come with him for the party, Felix holding his hand all the way there, even after they enter Dorian’s childhood home. Halward eyes their intertwined fingers as if they’ve personally offended him, and Felix stands up straighter, grips Dorian’s hand tighter.

In the end, the Alexius family is assigned to the north wing of the mansion, almost directly opposite to Dorian’s quarters, and no one is surprised.

Three days later, at his birthday party, Dorian has a sinking feeling in his gut. Felix tries to reassure him that nothing extraordinary is going to happen, but Dorian  _knows._ He knows his father, knows this wasn’t just an out of the blue invitation, but he cannot fathom what he’s planning. He sips on his champagne flute and looks around, suspicious, at a girl who’s been eyeing him sideways throughout the whole evening, wondering if she knows something, but everytime he tries to approach her, she slinks away.

Dorian _hates_ when he’s right.

Later in the evening, at the very end of the party, Halward beckons Dorian and the mysterious girl forward. She smiles at him, but it’s a small, fake thing. Dorian keeps his face impassive, but makes sure to lift his brows  _just so,_  just so she knows he already despises her, no matter that he doesn’t even know who she is yet.

“Ladies and gentleman of the magisterium,” Halward says, and Dorian has to hold himself back to not outright glare at him. Instead, he keeps his eyes trained forward, looking straight at Felix, who watches the scene him with pure, unhidden worry. “It is my greatest pleasure to announce the engagement of my son—“ and it is then that Dorian forgoes any complacency, turning his head and widening his eyes at his father, who pretends he cannot see him, “—Dorian, with dearest Livia from house Herathinos.”

“Excuse me?!” Dorian exclaims, and Halward drops his smile, turns and glares at him, as if annoyed. As if _Dorian_  was the one being unreasonable. “And when exactly was _I_  supposed to learn of this? The _alleged_ fiancé?”

“Not  _alleged,_  Dorian, you  _are_ her fiancé. Not stop making a scene, we’ll discuss this later.”

“ _No_ , we will  _not_ ,” he sneers, then turns to the girl, Livia, who has a small but unsurprised smile on her lips. “If you’ll excuse me, milady.”

With that, he turns around and walks out the room, which he can already hear burst into whispers. Not ten seconds later a pair of heavy footsteps echo behind him, and he hears his father shouting his name.

He pretends he doesn’t hear it.

“Dorian,  _stop!_ ” he exclaims once again, grabbing Dorian by the shoulder and forcefully spinning his body around. Dorian grimaces, pulls his shoulder off his grip in a rough jerk.

“Why do you insist on doing this, father?” He asks, voice wavering, and Halward reels back as if he’s been slapped.

“Me?! I’m not the one acting like a stubborn brat! This is your  _family,_  your  _duty!_ ”

Dorian laughs, throws his head back. He feels like crying, but holds his tears back. He will  _not_ crumble in front of his father, refuses to give him the satisfaction of knowing how deep his words and actions cut into him. “Pavus may be my surname, but it is not and will never be my  _family,_  father. It never was. I am sorry that I am an embarrassment for you, and a failure, but this is who I am, and that will not change, not now, not ever. So get used to it.  _Give it up._ ”

Halward reels back, face twisting in disgust, as if he cannot recognize the man before him. “I’m not giving anything up, boy, you’re my  _son! My heir!_ ”

“Just because I am your son doesn’t mean you have the right to  _force_ me into who you want me to be! I’m a  _person_ , not a  _putty toy_ that you can mold into whatever you like!”

A loud crack echoes through the corridor, and almost belatedly, Dorian realizes it was the sound of the back of Halward’s hand connecting against his cheek, the rings leaving painful bruises over his cheekbone.

“Learn some respect,” he spits out like the words are venom in his mouth. “You think you can achieve  _what_ with this?  _Freedom?_ Grow up, Dorian. You have  _responsibilities_ that you cannot simply walk away from.  _Expectations_ that must be met. It is bad enough you are  _Soporati_.” and the word he once again spits out, curling his lips to bare his teeth,  _disgusted_ , and for a second Dorian hears his father’s voice when he was ten.  _Disgraceful, shameful, unacceptable_. Something in Dorian’s ribcage aches harder than his cheek does. “You are a fool if you believe you can simply walk away from your duties.”

“And so a fool I will be,” Dorian sneers again, then turns around and walks away, and this time Halward doesn’t follow him.

He locks himself in his room and decides on leaving come morning and never looking back, organizing all the belongings he still has in his home in the various suitcases he finds. When he lies in bed he shuffles, restless and upset and uncomfortable in the silken sheets, and when he finally passes out it is to a restless sleep with disturbing dreams he will not remember come morning.

But the next morning is the tipping point on the fragile scale that is Dorian’s life.

He wakes up suddenly to a loud bang on his bedroom door. When he jumps up on his bed he sees Felix and, surprisingly, Maren, striding into his room towards his bed.

“What is the meaning of this?” Dorian asks, no longer sleep addled because of the scare they gave him and how _intense_ they both look, and Felix’s face twists as he runs to his side and puts a hand over his mouth.

“You father,” he says in a much lower voice, his face scrunched up, pained. Dorian looks at him, confused, and Felix sucks in a harsh breath. “He just killed one of the kitchen slaves. Overbled him. My father confronted him about it, and I overheard.”

Dorian’s blood seem to freeze over. His father always treated the slaves well, even when they misbehaved, this must surely have some logical explanation. Maybe he was mad about something? About him? Maybe he lost control?

He looks at Maren, but her ancient face is closed up, dark like a storm. He knows not to question when she’s in this sort of mood, so he looks back at Felix, searching for answers. He looks like he’s about to break down and cry.

“He... he was going to use it to perform a blood magic ritual on  _you,_  Dorian, to... to  _fix_ you,” he whispers, and there.

_ There  _ is the moment when Dorian’s life crumbles.

He’s  _falling,_  descending in freefall, his whole body plummeting, skin going cold as his vision goes dark. He clutches Felix’s shoulder, sees that his lips are moving, but his ears sound muffled, his voice distant, like wind is whipping across his face, deafening in his ears, like his heart is slowly stopping. A hand, much frailer, much smaller, touches his arm, and suddenly Felix’s comforting weight is gone. He whines loudly, but the hand in his arm slides up to his shoulder, his neck, cradles his face.

Maren is here, he thinks. _Why_ is Maren here?

“Dorian, listen to me,” her voice _sings_ through the white noise. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” he manages to sigh out, and the word slithers out with his breath like a wisp through his lips, taking with it all sense of living. Maren doesn’t seem to notice, or register it, and Dorian suddenly feels like a kid, lying on the grass after getting his ass whooped by her, the guard captain of their manor, the older, dalish woman that his grandfather bought on some shady slave market in Minrathous many years ago. He wonders what her story is, what happened to her to have ended up in the Pavus’ hands.

Faintly, he wishes, just for a moment, he could undo all that his people did to her. But he knows he can’t.

“You’re going to have to run away, Dorian. Alexius and his wife are arguing with your father as we speak. A distraction. And we’re taking you away from here, from their dirty little paws, once and for all.”

“Maren...” Dorian whispers, and Maren’s fingertips dig into his scalp, her thumbs stroking his cheek. Wiping away tears he hadn’t even noticed were there.

“You listen to me, Dorian Pavus,” she hisses, and her eyes water, and  _no, no, no,_  Dorian thinks.  _Please don’t cry. Not you too._ “I will not let your father ruin your life like he ruined his. I  _refuse.”_

“His stuff is all packed up, ma’am,” Felix says, stepping up next to her, and she nods once, somberly.

“Can you walk?” she asks, and Dorian’s lower lip trembles. His legs barely respond.

“Don’t think so.”

“Come on, Dori.” Felix kneels on the bed, wraps an arm around his shoulders and slips his other under his knees. When Dorian’s lifted, all he can do is loll his head onto Felix’s chest, stare dully at nothing in particular, eyes unfocused, sinuses stuffy as he tries to breathe. “Why you gotta be so muscle-y”, Felix whines, and starts walking.

The next few minutes go by in a blur that Dorian cannot distinguish. Doors and halls and people pass by, and Dorian hears sounds, voices, and at one point, _screaming_ that makes him curl up on himself, Felix shushing him from above. The sun eventually hits his face dead on, and he hides on the crook of Felix’s neck. A creak, shade, a door closing. Shaky, rattily movement.

“Felix, where...?”

“Shhh. We’re going home, Dori. Go back to sleep.”

He does as he’s told, figuring the dark can’t be as bad as the sunlight. Figuring this nightmare will be over once he wakes.

But it’s not.

The carriage arrives hours later at the Alexius manor, followed closely by a second one packed with his personal belongings. Dorian is less dazed at this point and just feels numb. He helps the servants unload the carriage, just to have something to do with his hands and body, and brings the bags to his and Felix’s room, and only once he’s done does it sink in.

His own father was going to attempt blood magic on him. The one thing he despises the most.

Apparently he despises his own son more than associating with demons, it seems.

“I believe... I’ll be leaving soon,” Dorian says once the silence stretches on for far too long. Felix widens his eyes.

“Where would you go to?” He asks, voice small, tentative. Dorian shakes his head.

“Out of Tevinter. Somewhere my father can’t reach me. Maybe the south. Work as a bodyguard. Don’t really know, to be honest.” He shrugs, and Felix sighs out, a shaky thing. He gets up, sits next to Dorian on his bed, wraps his arms around him as tight as he can. Dorian hesitates, but turns around and returns the gesture, sobbing against his shoulder.

“I’ll miss you, brother,” Felix whispers against the crook of Dorian’s neck when he manages to speak again, and sniffs.

_ Brother. _

His _family._

“Me too, my dear Felix. Me too.”


	2. Prologue: Bull

Little Ashkaari.

He likes to think that his Tama is proud of him. The small, feisty little qunari in the making.

Well. Maybe not _little_.

Ashkaari is the title given to him at seven years old, and he’s not exactly small and he knows it. He’s almost a head taller than all the other kids, broader and wider, too. Lots of them call him fat, chubby, and Tama has taught him these are not bad things.

“Your bearers were also bigger than the average qunari,” she tells him, smiling that soft little smile that makes his chest warm up, his legs kick excitedly over the log he’s sitting on. “You’re _special_. You’ll grow to be even bigger than them, I’m sure.”

“You _sure_ sure?” he asks, eyes almost sparkling with excited innocence, and she giggles.

“I’m _sure_ sure.” She takes him by the hand and leads him to the dorms. Ashkaari sleeps that day feeling like he’ll be the best qunari the Qun’s _ever_ had.

Ashkaari likes playing, but he also likes studying, something that makes his Tama proud. She orders dozens of books for him to read about all sorts of subjects, books that he digs avidly into. Their almost endless pages talk about the stars, nature, biology, and even things the Qun has very little information on, like the races and places of Thedas, history, and even _magic_. He knows he should pay extra attention to this last subject in particular, since it seems to be the one thing they lack the most, but the book has various illustrations that depict demons and how they reach the living world: by taking control and deforming their host’s body. If insects that do that to other insects give Ashkaari the creeps, the knowledge that there are creatures who can do it to a _person_ , even those who are not mages, makes his heart speed up, his fingers go cold.

He hides the books about magic under his bed and pretends he forgets about them.

Ashkaari learns well his role in the Qun. He eats up all the knowledge he receives, observing his surroundings like a hawk, his keen eyes always attentive to the people and the things around him. At age nine Ashkaari is breaking up fights before any adult notices they’re happening, takes care of the children when Tama cannot handle all of them at once on her own, and helps the ones that seem upset or distraught. Tama tuts at him fondly, telling him he should leave a Tamassran’s job to the actual Tamassrans, but it is always with a grin on her lips and a crinkle at the corner of her eyes.

But it is at age ten that his dreams start becoming... _troubled_.

One night, after falling into deep slumber, he doesn’t dream of past events, of places he’s visited or things that his friends said or did, like it is usual. Instead, he finds himself in a place he’s never seen before: cold, empty, the air weirdly stale and smelling heavily of rot. Dry plants seem to sprout randomly between the cracks on the stoney ground, and a thick, green mist covers the apparently endless horizon. And most importantly, although he sees that he’s alone, he doesn’t _feel_ alone. He knows someone or something else is there, too, because he feels like he’s being _watched_.

And he doesn’t like it.

“What do you fear, little one?” Comes a voice from behind him, and Ashkaari jumps, turns around with his hands fisted in his shirt. There, sitting at a wooden bench that most certainly didn’t exist just moments before, is an older qunari, bronze skin and crooked nose, silver hair falling over his shoulders, both horns cracked and flaky with age.

“Where am I?” He asks, and the man’s smile broadens, making an uncomfortable chill run down Ashkaari’s spine.

“The place of dreams,” he tells him, gesturing with his hand, the mist twisting around his wrist as if alive, “and the good thing about it is that it can be _anything you want_.”

Suddenly the scenery changes, making Ashkaari gasp. The acrid smell gives way to the scent of sea salt, the odd, heavy silence replaced by the rhythm of the waves. Beneath his bare toes he feels soft sand, cool and fine, the sun shining overhead, and palm trees sprout from the ground, shaking softly with the billowy breeze.

Ashkaari knows this place: it’s one of the many beaches around Par Vollen, specifically the one near his school. It’s one of his favorite places, and the fact that the strange man seems to know this only unnerves him further.

“Do you like it?” He asks, but before Ashkaari can reply the sky seems to twist, the sand heats up beneath his feet, and the sun blackens; the next time he blinks a wind as strong as a typhoon lashes against his face, the trees wither and die, and a massive wave begins making its way toward what’s left of the beach. Ashkaari’s heart thuds loudly in his chest, his breathing becomes ragged, signs of panic rising up in his throat.

“I know you fear this,” the man shouts to be heard over the storm, rising to his feet as he approaches Ashkaari, one step at a time. “I can make it stop, if you want. I can bring back the beach, your safe haven, your _home_. You just have to say the words, little one.”

 _The place of dreams_ , Ashkaari thinks, looking around, the sound of the sea deafening in his ears as the wave gets closer and closer to the shore, ready to destroy everything in its wake. It _feels_ and _looks_ real, but it isn’t. It’s a dream like none other he’s ever had, but it’s a dream nevertheless. Just a dream.

In a fluid motion, Ashkaari falls to his knees, puts his palms over his thighs, and closes his eyes as he starts to recite the Tome of Koslun, just like Tama taught him to do when he meditates.

“Meraad astaarit, meraad itwasit, aban aqun,“ he begins, voice shaky yet loud enough that the sound of his own voice paired with the howling of the wind and the roaring of the sea makes it impossible to distinguish what the man is saying - but nevertheless he knows he is saying _something_ , because Ashkaari hears his voice booming, screaming, _shrieking_ , like a monster instead of a man. He bows his head, squeezes his eyes shut, screams the canticle as the wind picks up, hits against his torso like ice, makes him wobble on his knees, feels the ground shake as the waves come closer and become louder, louder, _louder_ \--

He wakes up.

Ashkaari is sweating, gasping for air, his thin nightgown sticking to his skin. It felt so _real_ his whole body prickles with the phantom feeling of the cold on his too hot body.

He tells Tama about his dream as soon as he manages to get out of bed, and he swears he sees her face paling as she holds back a grimace.

“Did you... agree? To make it stop, like he suggested?” She asks, carefully, and he shakes his head.

“No, I didn’t, Tama. You taught me not to talk to suspicious people, so I didn’t.”

He wonders if what she taught him also counts for made up people he sees in his dreams while he sleeps, but by the way she deflates, almost as if relieved, he figures he did the right thing.

“Do not tell this to anyone. You _mustn't_ ,” she begs him, grabbing both his arms more forcefully than she normally does. He feels overwhelmed, and still scared about his dream, but nods anyway, and she nods back, hugging him tightly. “You did well, Ashkaari. You’re a good child.”

Ashkaari hugs her back, hoping that he never, _ever_ has any dreams like that one.

But still the dreams come, again and again and again, haunting him nearly every day. They get scarier and scarier and the people who talk to him - always a different person every day - get more and more annoying, more insistent, more _convincing_. He just meditates harder and tries to ignores them completely. He fears them more than anything, more than the demons from the magic books, but he tries to be strong. He was _bred_ to be strong, so even when he doesn’t feel all that strong he just pretends, until the monsters in his dreams believes he is. Until he believes it too.

On his fourteenth birthday, when he’s to come of age, things start looking up and falling apart in Ashkaari’s life.

Tama always taught him and his peers the importance of a Tamassran: to raise qunlets and help them find their way in the qun, the places where they’ll fit in the whole. His title, Ashkaari, means he has a keen eye and mind, and she’d once told him that because of his gender, body strength and cleverness he was promised to the Ben Hassrath. He’ll be part of Par Vollen’s security and secret intelligence, helping his people stay safe from eventual threats. Tama always made him feel proud of it.

A Besrathari visits their camp to summon Ashkaari, and with tears in his eyes and tight hugs in between goodbyes, he’s taken away to finally perform his role.

He meets other Ashkaari while in training, both older and younger than him, and they’re all evaluated and placed somewhere in Par Vollen according to their own personal affinity. Ashkaari passes through his out-of-field training with stellar performances, and because of his appearance and ability to deceive and manipulate he’s given the fake title of Kas, _sword_ , then assigned to the docks of Par Vollen to watch the people and the cargo ships as they come and go. His fake title makes both local and passing traders believe him to simply be a newly assigned security of the higher-ups in the Ben Hassrath, and he blends in with ease.

He’s young for his supposed role, but his sheer size makes him look much older. He plays dumb with ease, slowly earning the trust of the regulars that come and go through the pier, and he’s _good_ at what he does. No one suspects him to be something other than what he says he is, and he tricks them into telling him important information the Ben-Hassrath need to know about. Because of these skills, he’s quickly stripped of the title of Ashkaari and is given the title of Hissrad.

 _Keeper of illusions_ , in common. _Liar_ , if you want to be crude about it. The title makes him proud, and he puffs up his chest and smiles as he introduces himself to his peers with his new role.

That is, until the day he discovers that a man, now with the title of Athlok, former leader of a group Hissrad disbanded in one of his first official missions, a group that was planning to flee the Qun, was force fed qamek. He’s informed of this by one of his superiors, who claps him in the shoulder and congratulates him for digging out the traitor before they’d lost any good men. Hissrad freezes, his stomach plummeting and shoulders bunching up, but quickly he schools his face and body language to one he knows his superior expects: a small grin, a crinkle at the corner of his eyes, a nod in acknowledgement. He’s performed his role well and is content for the praise.

The idea that a man was force fed qamek because of him, however, plagues him throughout the day. He tells himself he’ll get over it, forget about Athlok; asit tal-eb. He’ll encounter many more Athlok in his line of work. It is to be. Life goes on, and their role in the qun changes, but society persists.

And maybe he would’ve eventually managed to come to terms with it, if it wasn’t for the dreams.

That night, after he falls asleep, he sees Athlok; Hissrad didn’t see him after the Ben-Hassrath raided his home, but he remembers his face clearly, and the man before him, suffering from the effects of qamek poisoning, isn’t the same anymore. His eyes are blank and glassy, his skin is mottled with dirt and bruises that mix together until you can barely see which is which, and the palm of both his hands bleed profusely from bursting open the blisters he gets from overworking the pickaxe over the walls of the mine they both stand in. And still he swings it, still he works the stone, over and over again, like a puppet on strings, uncaring of his wounds. Athlok never says anything, but every now and again he’ll stop and look at Hissrad, and his mouth opens, much too widely to look natural, and all he ever says is _Asit tal-eb, Hissrad_ , in a monotone and ghostly voice.

It doesn’t take long for Hissrad to recognize the dream as his usual haunting ones. So he drops to his knees, closes his eyes and recites the canticles until the dream stops, as usual, and although at first he was grateful that Athlok’s dreams have no monsters in them, he began to realize that Athlok _was_ the monster. Day after day Athlok seems to become worse, his voice more shaky, the _wham wham wham_ of the pickaxe becoming louder and louder against Hissrad’s ears, his jaw opening wider and wider until the inside of his mouth looks like an endless black pit, the dream seeming to extend for hours on end until Hissrad wakes with his knees shaky and weak from kneeling on the rough stone floor and his ears ringing from all the noise.

It chills Hissrad to his core, and even when the dreams become more and more sporadic thanks to his prolonged meditating sessions, he spends months on end seeing Athlok’s face amidst the crowd that fills up the docks; a figment of his troubled mind. The only reason he doesn’t flinch or show any other signs that he’s scared shitless is that he’s been trained to force himself not to show weakness, to school his body and mind to show what he wants to show instead of what he truly feels. He knows better than to break his facade.

And although he won’t ever admit it, when he thinks _Hissrad_ he now thinks of Athlok, hears his title in his frighteningly monotone voice. The title leaves a sour taste on his tongue, makes his stomach plummet, and sometimes, as he sits in bed in the morning and meditates to shake off the aftermath of his dreams, he wonders if he’d been assigned any other title if he could’ve prevented Athlok’s doomed fate somehow.

He doubts it, but still he wonders.

He drowns his doubts by writing extensive daily and monthly reports, getting praised more often than not for his work, and after just two years of working in Par Vollen he discovers a Tevinter spy ring while dismantling a smuggling operation. It takes him another full year to finally obtain enough information and come up with a solid plan, but he manages to arrest all the people involved.

The Besrathari that originally recruited him insists on giving his compliments personally, and takes the opportunity to inform him of his new job.

“Seheron?” He asks, confused. His supervisor nods.

“Just for two years. We need people like you, Hissrad, helping with that war. You’re an invaluable asset, and with your skills, you’ll fit like a glove in Seheron.”

He’s heard of Seheron. Who hasn’t, really: the island was taken over by Tevinter until the Qunari came and claimed it for themselves, despite the fact that there were already plenty of natives in the place before either group landed on their beaches. Thus began a bloody and seemingly endless conflict, where neither side will admit defeat and give the place up. Seheron is a mess that no one knows how to fix.

And now he’s being sent there.

“Of course,” Hissrad says, banging his fist against his chest, and Besrathari nods.

“You will do well in Seheron, Hissrad. The Qun is better every day for having you.”

Hissrad is shipped to Seheron along with a group of people from the Antaam and a few other Ben-Hassrath. He sees smoke billowing up as they approach, and something tells Hissrad it’s not from a chimney.

The Hissrad that greets him is older than him by at least a decade, and half of his face and torso is covered in a seemingly fresh burn scar. He informs him that he’s to be retired from Seheron due to his combat injury - hard to fight with a blind side - but he’ll stay to train Hissrad until he deems him ready to take on his team. Hissrad eyes the man’s scars, a bit unsettled; the wound looks painful, angry and shiny red even after fully healed, and it covers his entire right arm, collarbone, chest, all the way down to his last rib.

“Mage fire,” he explains one day, pointing to his injuries. “You must remember to always keep both your eyes on the mages that you find on the battlefield. They’re not just ranged attackers: they’re living killing machines. I’ve seen better and stronger men fall to their spells as easily as squashing a paralyzed fly under a thumb.”

Hissrad feels a chill run down his spine, and he widens his eyes in shock. His mentor puts a hand over his shoulder, presses his lips together sternly.

“Lesson number one, Hissrad; always take the mages down first. You’d rather have an arrow in your shoulder than a lightning bolt over your head.”

And so his training begins. Hissrad still has his dreams, and still he doesn’t tell anyone about them, like Tama instructed him to. They get scarier and horrifically realistic as time goes by, to the point where he dreams about the day his mentor was burned half to death and wakes up still smelling burnt flesh in his room, cloying up his nose, making bile rise from his throat as he tries to shove the gorey image that seems to be branded to the back of his eyes. But, at the same time, he can most of the time control them better. He never interacts with the people and the monsters that taunt him, instead opting for reciting the Qun out loud, getting louder and louder as they get more and more insistent. It just angers them further, but Hissrad rejects their existence completely, meditates into a deep trance, ignores the made-up world around him. Sometimes the monsters go away after a while, leaving him alone to rest. But most days it’s a constant fight that lasts all night long.

The training in Seheron is harder than Hissrad predicted. His mentor isn’t as forgiving or kind as his Tama or his Ben-Hassrath superiors from Par Vollen. He’s harsh, blunt, unforgiving, constantly reminding Hissrad that the world is just as bad, if not worse - and when he doesn’t do it in words, his scars does the remembering for him. Seheron is a place of death and constant conflict, and his own sharp mind and stronger than average body will be the things that will help him and the people around him survive, whether they’re his responsibility or not - and most times they won’t be.

His training includes heavy combat routines, strength, swiftness, stealth and stamina exercises, sharpening his fast thinking abilities and his already keen eye by over-analyzing his surroundings, and using mathematical, strategic, and sometimes even military logic to find solutions to seemingly impossible situations. Hissrad already does most of these these things without prompt, like a second nature, so he excels in his training and appreciates any new knowledge he gains, the improvements he makes, no matter how small, absorbing it all in like a dry sponge, eager to get better and better every single day. And despite his competence, despite his hard working attitude and his continuous success in all the tasks he’s given, compliments from his mentor are scarce and cold. And when they do come they feel _empty_ , like his mentor feels that assuring him that he’s doing well is as much of a task as teaching him is, but Hissrad reminds himself that he is no imekari anymore. The empty praise shouldn’t bother him. Whether he’s learning well and quickly is all that matters, and as long as he can help the people that both live and fight in the island of Seheron then he has performed his role successfully.

One year passes, and finally Hissrad’s training is deemed finished. His mentor congratulates him with a hug, the most warmth he’s ever shown him, then goes back to Par Vollen to enjoy the last of his days executing small yet essential tasks for the Qun, where his missing vision won’t be a hindrance. Hissrad’s first official mission is one they’ve been training for already: assess the ship of a magister that’s docking in the port in a few days, take down all Tevinters that disembark, and rescue the slaves.

He looks at the team assigned to him with the eyes of a leader for the first time; most of them are around his age, some a bit older, and there’s a couple of elvhen Viddathari. They look up to him for guidance, and Hissrad promises to himself that he’ll guide them as best as he can.

“Alright,” he says out loud, and everyone straightens their backs. Even like this, none of them reach the top of his shoulders. “Everyone, listen up. We do as we practiced. Kill the magisters, not the slaves. Even if they attack you, I want you to only incapacitate. The Qun does not want meaningless deaths. Any questions?”

“No, sir,” they reply in varying tones of voice, and Hissrad smiles.

“Alright. We go in, we go out. Just as we practiced.”

But, of course, it doesn’t go as practiced.

In theory, they incapacitate the non-magic scouts that are sent to survey the surroundings of the beach where they’ll make camp; kill all Tevinter on sight, steal their boats, move back into the ship, attack and kill all passengers still on board, then converse with the slaves.

The real deal, however, is a completely different matter.

The scouts go down quietly and easily, without alerting anyone on the beach. The issue starts when one of his boys gets trapped when he steps in what looks like a magical sigil that was traced on the floor. It wasn’t his fault; moonlight is scarce and the sigil was scribbled on the sand, easily missed. It starts glowing when it activates, and he freezes, his other leg raised midstep. His face contorts with fear, and somewhere ahead, he hears a whistle.

They’ve been spotted much earlier than predicted.

Hissrad dives away from an ice stalactite that flies in his direction and barks out orders to attack. _Go for the mages first._ His team dives with surprisingly good sinergy, and although the mages have fancy staffs and powerful magic, they’re vastly outnumbered by three to one each. None of the slaves seem to be interested in sacrificing themselves when they realize what’s happening, cowering on the back of a tent or hiding behind a big enough wooden chest, mostly terrified and shocked.

Except for one particular slave.

Hissrad dodges a fireball and elbows the mage that conjured it, right in his gut, making him lose his balance; it’s enough time for Hissrad to pull the staff from his hands and clonk him across the forehead with enough force to shatter its focus crystal. The staff sends tingles up Hissrad’s forearm and he throws it to the floor with a grimace, pushing the heel of his foot on the grip to break it in two, just for good measure. When he turns his attention to the last mage standing, already refocusing his staff to attack once more, an elf appears from behind Hissrad, pushing him away with a snarl and pouncing atop the man’s chest, throwing them both down to the floor. The mage barks something to the slave in Tevinter, obviously taken aback, but he never finishes his thought: with an unbelievable swiftness the elf pulls a silver knife from his waist and sinks it into the man’s neck. The gurgle the Magister makes, choking on his own blood, makes Hissrad shiver, but the elf doesn’t even flinch. He just sinks the knife again and again and again, his teeth bared and his breathing hard, and only when his arm is shaking too much for him to raise it again does he drop the knife and slumps his body forward.

“Hey,” Hissrad whispers, and a part of his mind tells him that he shouldn’t do this, shouldn’t _care_ so much, not anymore, and especially not in Seheron of all places. He’s always cared like this, always, since he was Imekari and then Ashkaari, but he’s not a Tama, nor will he ever be, and getting attached doesn’t do him any good. But the elf turns around, and he’s so _young_ , looks so desolate, so _tired_ , his breathing coming out shaky and ragged. Even with blood covering his entire body from face to knees, Hissrad’s instincts yell at him to _protect this kid_. “You okay?”

“ _Thank_ you,” the elf whispers instead, his bottom lip wobbling as clear tears run down his bloody cheeks, and Hissrad manages a nod, offers his hand to help him up.

Well. The Qun wanted them to recruit the slaves, and Hissrad knows he at least has one.

The boy from his team that got trapped at the beginning of the invasion has some major injuries, but he’s the worse of them. Everyone else has only minor scratches or are just scared, running off on the adrenaline of a successful first mission with their new commander. The elf and all the other slaves rescued are taken to the Ariqun, and not six months later, much to Hissrad’s surprise, the explosive young elf comes back to him, bows down before Hissrad with a fist over his chest.

“I have been assigned to your group, Hissrad,” he says, smiling. “I convinced the Ben-Hassrath we would make a good team.”

“Did you now.” Hissrad doesn't say it like a question. He raises a single brow, evaluating the elf, dressed up in light leather armor and not as skinny as when they first met. The elf nods and pinches his lips together.

“You saved me, Hissrad. I owe you my life.”

“You owe me nothing. I was just fulfilling a demand of the Qun, little gaatlok.”

The elf widens his eyes, staring at Hissrad with curiosity.

“Gaatlok?” He asks, and Hissrad is about to apologize when he smiles once more, sharp and impish, almost like a child who’s been allowed to break the rules for once. “ _Gaatlok_. I like it.”

Hissrad laughs, slaps the new recruit on the shoulder so hard he stumbles under the strength of the blow, then introduces him to the rest of the guys. And halfway through introductions, he realizes.

It’s the first time he’s genuinely laughed in a long, long time.

One year in and Hissrad’s team is the best the Ben-Hassrath has had in decades in that damned island. But above it all they’re all good friends who get along, who have each other’s backs and talk and sing and play cards together after missions to shake off the tension of the day away. They’re like a big family, and although their work is brutal and unforgiving and every now and then Hissrad is either having to bury one of their own or say goodbye to someone who’s maxed their two year stay on the damn island, most of the time Hissrad is happy. He’s six months himself from going back to Par Vollen, already training one of his boys to take over when he does: Vashaad, the one who braids his hair as they share stories in the evening, who gathers fruits during his lookouts to bring back to the team, who plucks the string of a lute as Hissrad sings along to the melodies he plays. Vashaad is Hissrad’s most trusted soldier and confidant, and thus is a clear choice for the job, even though the role isn’t usually one that replaces Hissrads. But he knows he’ll do a good job, won’t leave anything unfinished or anyone behind. He knows Vashaad will do well.

Until the day when it all comes crumbling apart.

They’re in a mission, and suddenly ten slaves turn to five. The other half are killed, their blood forcefully drawn by their masters, and _there_.

There Hissrad sees for the first time the monsters that plague his dreams so vividly in the flesh and bone, or as much flesh and bone as they can be.

They tower over him and his group, growl and hiss and spit fire and smoke, raise their claws and glare with their eyeless faces. In his head he hears their voices as clear as a summer day, tempting and taunting, scornful and filled with rage, threatening him and everyone else he’s ever met in his life.

Hissrad freezes, like there’s a trap under his feet instead of damp grass and soft earth. His team calls out for him, but their voices are muffled in his ears, like he’s submerged in a stormy sea, so loudly the creatures - no, the _demons_ \- speak to him.

All at once they charge, and Hissrad jerks the arm not holding his axe towards them, almost as a reflex.

And the demons are all pushed away.

For a second Hissrad wonders what just happened, but when he looks again he sees blue fire everywhere: in a ring around the demons who have all retreated in fear; on the clothes of the magisters who were thrown onto their backs by some unknown force; engulfing his hand, coating his palm and fingers, flickering with the wind but cool to the touch like water.

In his head he hears his old mentor’s voice, sees the reddish scars that covered his face running down towards his own hand all the way down to his wrist, damaging his skin until it’s nigh unrecognizable.

_Mage fire._

He shrieks, waves his hand to put the fire out, ihis heart rate so frantic he feels lightheaded, only to see that there is no scar to be spoken of, his hand completely unmarred by the heat. His teammates, however, are all looking at him in a mix of fear, surprise, and horror.

He’s still frozen in place, staring at his hand as if it’s going to burst out in fire once more, and somewhere behind him Vashaad shouts orders and gets everyone to snap out of their stunned inaction. They run back towards the demons and magisters, fight breaking out again, but it all seems far, far away from Hissrad, who falls to his knees and clutches his own wrist, breathing hard with fear, the twisted and gnarled faces of the demons fresh and vivid in his mind’s eye.

Eventually Gatt comes to him and kneels by his side, frowning.

“We should probably call for the Viddathlok,” someone says, and Gatt’s frown deepens. He reaches out to touch Hissrad’s forearm, almost as if soothing.

“I didn’t know...” Gatt whispers, and Hissrad tightens his fists until his knuckles turn white, presses his lips together.

_It can’t be._

No words come to him. Vashaad shouts for everyone to gather the slaves still alive and retreat, and Gatt helps Hissrad to his feet. He moves when the rest of the team moves, taking the rear instead of the front, Vashaad easily taking his place, like they’ve been training for him to do, and Gatt lingers behind with him, holding his forearm tightly all the way through. When they get to their camp, where before there would be chattering and games celebrating a successful mission, there is only silence, the crackling of the fire loud in everyone’s ears. Tension hangs in the air, so heavy it’s almost suffocating.

_It **can’t** be._

When the sun is finally setting, Salit comes back with both an Isskari and an Arvaarad in tow. Hissrad gets up wordlessly, casting one final glance at his companions.

Gatt frowns, like he wants to say something, and Vahsaad's mask of indifference cracks, just that tiny bit, like Hissrad knows to happen when he wants to object to a rule of the Qun but knows he cannot.

Neither one say anything.

It can’t be, but it is.

They collar him, the steel cold and heavy over his shoulders, digging into his skin and muscles, but still he doesn't protest, doesn't fight as he’s taken away.

Imekari. Ashkaari. Hissrad. And now, Saarebas.

If Hissrad at one point felt sour on his tongue, Saarebas is like ash, gritty and dry and uncomfortable.

It makes no sense to him. He is twenty now, much over the age one’s magic abilities would normally manifest. He wonders if they were, for some reason, suppressed, but now at least the nightmares make sense. They’re the work of _demons_ , trying to lure and weaken him to make him susceptible for possession. The thought only makes him fear them more, makes him restless, unwilling to sleep, gives him even worse nightmares than usual.

His Arvaarad follows him everywhere he goes, even the privy, and it makes him uncomfortable. After so long thinking of himself as Hissrad, with his independence and the trust placed upon him by his superiors and his subordinates, he has difficulty responding to the calls of _Saarebas_ , which obviously annoys Arvaarad, but also makes him pity him. He loathes to be pitied.

Arvaarad talks to his own superiors about serrating his horns, too big and dangerous, and the possibility of losing such an essential part of him, such an iconic and beloved piece of himself, scares him more than he cares to admit. But he has no say in this. Whatever his superiors decides is best will be done, and he will not and should not argue or convince them otherwise. His wants are not his own, and the Qun’s needs come above it all. But they also talk about stitching his lips, cutting his tongue off, chaining his feet and wrists, as if he isn’t there, listening to it all. As if he should be incapable of caring about what will be physically done to him.

He wonders if the Qun treated Athlok the same way before they gave him the Qamek.

When they seem to be about to make the final decision on which ways to restrain him, something happens that no one expects:

His Tama comes.

She appears in the Antaam camp in Seheron like she’s a Kithshok instead of a Tamassran, marching forward with her bare chest out and a glare that makes Karasaad and Sten alike step out of her path.

She approaches him first, eyes fixed on him like there’s no one else around, cradles his face in her hands like he’s still hers.

“I always feared, imekari,” she whispers, then kisses his brows, one at a time. “I always suspected. But I prayed to Koslun it wasn’t true. I am sorry.”

“It’s okay, Tama.” Tears well up in his eyes and his nose clogs up, the joy and the grief of finally seeing her again, now of all times, mixing together. He sighs out through his mouth. “It’s okay, it’s not your fault.”

She shakes her head in almost defeat. They stay like that in silence, foreheads touching, face cradled in her hands, until Arvaarad approaches them and clears his throat. Tama sighs, kisses his brows again, then turns around and straightens up to her full height, marvelously intimidating.

“You must be lenient with the Saarebas,” she says, stern. Arvaarad seems unshaken by both her presence and her demand. “He’s been a loyal follower of the Qun from the beginning, and he’s more than proved himself the five years he worked for the Ben Hassrath. You must take these into consideration when deciding his fate.”

“His sacrifice for the Qun is the ultimate one, Tamassran,” Arvaarad says, bowing slightly, and it makes his blood run cold. _It’s like I’m already dead,_ he thinks, swallowing. “The fact that he’s strived so far under the influence of demons and other creatures alike without succumbing, never faltering, is a noble one. He’ll be a strong and important addition to the Antaam.”

The part where he’ll be at the front lines as an unstoppable weapon and a meat shield to protect the men behind him goes unsaid.

Tama stays two more days at their camp, engrossed in meetings, her voice loud and overpowering over those belonging to the Antaam. In the end she convinces his superiors that it’s in their best interest to keep him as able bodied as possible, to be able to fight and defend with his body as much as with his magic, just as he’s been trained to do; he’s a melee fighter in his core, after all. Before Tama leaves she kisses his brows one last time and gives him a look that speaks of regret, that shakes with uncertainty. She is scared for him, and he is just as frightened as she is.

As he watches her boat float across the sea back to Par Vollen, he feels more alone than he’s ever felt in his life.

Days turn to weeks which turns to months, and he cannot call himself Saarebas, no matter how hard he tries. _Dangerous Thing_ is his title, but dangerous to whom, he wonders. Dangerous to others? To himself? Or both at the same time?

Arvaarad doesn’t train him, refuses to do so, even when he begs; says he has no use for learning how to cast by himself, and even if he wanted to, he cannot teach him anything, since he is not a mage and thus he does not know how to instruct him. So Arvaarad wields the control rod, which in turn controls his body like a puppet on strings. His muscles jerk and he feels warmth rolling through his veins, directing roaring heat through his fingertips in the form of fire. He widens his eyes, terrified at the sight, but refrains from screaming, from running. There is no telling what Arvaarad might do to him if he does. With a flicker of the rod he changes from fire to ice, and with another he feels the air around him weigh him down like a physical thing, just for it to expand and explode, billowing the grass on the floor away from him. For hours on end the rod is wielded, liquid lyrium shoved down his throat when he tires, the taste acrid and pungent, and not a moment of rest is allowed to him. Not a word of protest.

It’s _agony_.

Still, Arvaarad is not satisfied. He compares wielding the rod to a Bas dance: one person guides, and the other allows themselves to be guided, led through the music; Arvaarad, in this metaphor, leads the dance, and the magic is the music. The Saarebas is supposed to just feel it in their bones as the lead guides them through the melody of destruction and chaos that is magic. Right now, however, he’s too tight to be properly controlled, too stiff, his movements stilted and uncomfortable. He must allow himself to be loose and _follow_ the sync of the battle along with his Arvaarad instead of just lying back and allowing the rod to move his limbs at the Arvaarad’s will.

But _how_ , he wonders, how can he ever be okay with this, with the knowledge that he’s not just a weapon, but a volatile one, ready to explode in a moment’s notice or have his body taken over by a thing who means only harm in the blink of an eye?

He cannot fathom _how_.

He also cannot, however, tell this to Arvaarad. As Saarebas, this is the one and only role he can perform in the Qun. Should he suggest reeducation, they’d certainly feed him Qamek to cut his body and mind from the world and the fade. Turn him into a mindless worker, with no personality, no thoughts of his own, no needs.

No soul.

He thinks once again of Athlok and feels like he now truly understands the man’s reasoning in trying to flee the Qun. Guilt and remorse bite at him, both for the man’s faith and for undoubtedly betraying the Qun by having sympathy on someone like Athlok. It makes him grind his teeth and pull at his hair when no one’s there to see it.

For the first time in his life he’s at a loss, doubting himself, his own mind, his own way of living. Unable to identify with his assigned role and slowly sinking into desperation. He doesn’t let it show around Arvaarad, the Ben Hassrath part of him as efficient as ever when it comes to hiding weaknesses and emotions from others, but every evening is spent crying silently, too afraid to sleep and too tired to stay awake. A constant battle with himself.

The days drag into months, and still he and Arvaarad are not in sync; he fears that they never will be. Still, they’re both sent to a skirmish that is about to happen on one of the shores of Seheron, just as he turns twenty-one. They travel through the jungle in absolute silence as is their usual when Arvaarad is not screaming and berating him for his lack of skill with his magic. When they reach the Antaam, Arvaarad is given heavy armour, but he is only painted with Vitaar that covers his face and chest and given a belt and a pair of cuffs that improve his magical abilities.

He is then placed at the front of the group, which makes him feel more exposed than ever in his life.

He feels an uncomfortable tingle on his neck, meaning the control rod is activated, and soon after the Antaam begins marching, feet silent as they keep their ears open for any signs of trouble. His legs seem to be pushed at the same time he moves them; a side-effect of the rod, which commands him to move at the same time he tries to do so independently. Like there’s another set of bones in his legs, connected to a different brain altogether. An alien feeling he hasn’t gotten accustomed to, and hopes he never will.

They walk through the jungle in silence for what feels like hours, his legs already tiring, not solely from the physical exertion of marching but mostly from trying to fight back against the control rod’s commands. He pushes away a handful of vines that are blocking his vision of the path ahead, and instead of more vegetation all he sees is a bright, blinding light, moving towards him.

Immediately his arms come up, casts a barrier, the fireball colliding with it and dissipating, and the entire antaam screams a war cry, stomping forward. He’s pushed along in the frail, and faintly, behind the spells his hands cast on their own, he sees about two dozen magisters, organized in a row, blood seeping out freely from the throat of the bodies that lie at their feet.

They’ve finally found their target, and his first mission as Saarebas is officially underway.

An arrow flies towards them, hits him in the shoulder; the vitaar stops the worse of it, only the tip sinking into his skin, barely a knick. Behind him, the armored soldiers with melee weapons dash forward, temporarily distracting the magisters away from him, and one of the ranged soldiers hits a spear right in the throat of one of the magisters. Most of them, however, are deflected by a shield that a mage that lingers behind casts, and Arvaarad focuses on him.

His arm surges forward, a fireball bigger than his own head sprouting forth from his palm and flying towards the mage, making him lose his focus for a second and resulting in another magister falling.

However, the amount of energy it took for him to cast something so big and powerful so suddenly takes its toll on him; his vision goes blurry and black at the edges, his knees buckle, and it’s only the control rod that keeps him up.

Someone shouts by his right, probably Arvaarad, the rush of adrenaline and exhaustion making his ears ring and muffling the words until they’re just a confusing garble that mixes with the war cries and pained shouts of both the humans and his teammates. He feels the control rod try to get him to cast again, to move, but it’s like someone’s broken his strings; he tries to lift his arms and finds he can’t. He sees movement through the corner of his eye as his vision gets back on focus, hears Arvaarad scream again, and he manages to turns just in time to see a man run up to him with a club in his arms, the heavy maul quickly descending towards him.

And then, nothing.

 

\---

 

When he awakes, it is to the smell of hay and soft dirt.

Above him, someone sighs.

“Oh, bull-child, you’re awake. Thank the creators.”

He opens his eyes with some difficulty, his vision blurry at first, and finds himself inside a small wooden cot, face-to-face with an elvhen woman, old, small and frail. She’s sweating and panting, her short white hair sticking to her forehead--

\--and she’s balancing herself on a mage staff that she holds tightly on her right hand.

His heart speeds up as he shuffles away, hands and legs scratching against the floor to push himself further away from the woman, shouting as a sharp pain shoots up his left side and makes him stop on his tracks. She comes closer still and shushes him.

“No, no, no, it’s okay, I’m not gonna harm you, I’m not--”

“ _Mage_ ,” he croaks out, throat dry and scratchy, eyes focused on her staff as he tries to crawl further away using just his hands. “ _Get away!_ ”

“Now. Now, I know.” Slowly, as if to not scare a frightened animal, she lowers her staff to the dirt, then lifts both her hands in front of her in a placating gesture. “But I’m not about to harm you. And you need _help_ , bull-child.”

“You don’t need that... that _thing_ to cast,” he spits out, although he doesn’t make another attempt to cower. The pain in his left leg worsens the more awake he becomes, and although he’s about to pass out from it, the fear of being left alone and unconscious with this stranger keeps him awake somehow.

“I know. I know I don’t. And I know why you’re wary of me. But I’m not _them_ , I’m not with the Tevinters. I’m a Seheron native.”

“ _Why_. Why help me?”

“I was walking through the clearing after the fight was over, and saw you there, struggling to breathe. I couldn’t just leave you to die.”

“What-what about the Sten? And Arvaarad? Why did you leave _them?_ ”

She frowns, confused, then quickly turns sad, her face falling.

“Oh, child. You were the only one still alive.”

That makes him pause, almost as if his heart stops for a second.

All dead. All of them.

“ _You lie!_ ”

“Why would I, I have no reason to do so.”

“No. No, no, no, the Antaam, they’ll come, they’ll be looking for me, they’ll find me a new Arvaarad--”

She shakes her head, crestfallen. “The antaam had already picked the battlefield clean, young one. They’d left by the time I got there. I’m sorry.”

But if the Antaam had already come and gone through the wreckage of the battlefield, then...

Then they left him to die.

Not much use for a Saarebas without an Arvaarad, he thinks, eyeing his hands on the floor, scorched and scratched and shaking, nails black with dirt, heavy cuffs still attached to his wrists.

His fingers touch the iron collar around his neck.

“They probably thought you dead. There was another soldier atop of you, and you had a severe head wound. You bled quite a lot and you could barely breathe with the weight on your chest. One had to look carefully to note you were still alive.”

“Who...?”

“Got the man off of you?” The woman points to her staff, but quickly puts her hands back up. “I did, with the help of my magic. I then healed your head wound to the best of my abilities, then put you atop my mount and brought you to my home. You’re still badly injured, your left leg was crushed, but I need to rest and restore some mana before tending to it.”

“You... _healed_ me?”

The woman tenses, hesitates, but eventually nods. “I did. I healed you with my magic. If I hadn’t, you would have died, and I would never forgive myself if I had let you perish knowing I could do something about it.”

His blood runs cold and his breathing picks up, the pain on his leg all but forgotten. The knowledge that someone else’s magic touched him, changed him, _manipulated_ him...

...but also the knowledge that non-destructive magic _exists_ , that he can use it to defend, to _help_ people, soothes him somehow. It reminds him of Tama, looking after her imekari and tutting whenever he followed her steps. Again he touches his collar, feels the now-familiar weight of it digging into the meat of his shoulders, remembers the feeling of fire in his veins, in his gut, spewing forth from his fingers.

“Can you... teach me?” He asks, hesitant, and the woman drops her hands, grinning softly.

“Certainly. I’d be happy to do so. Where would you like to begin?”

Her name, he discovers, is Araci.

She’s a healer in her village, known for rescuing rebels and natives caught in the crossfire of the war between Par Vollen and Tevinter, loved and respected by all who come to speak to her. Araci heals his leg the very next day, and he winces at the alien sensation as she grits her teeth and pants. After long, excruciating minutes she informs him that the bones have mended crookedly, thanks to his biology that allows for faster-than-average healing, and there isn’t much she can do anymore. Bull gets up, puts his weight on it, and feels it: a slight twinge of pain that shoots up his leg, but nothing that will hinder his ability to walk or even run. He’ll just learn to live with it; better than having no leg at all.

Although Araci warms up to him rather quickly, the villagers are wary of his presence, no matter that he cannot leave her tent just yet; he hears it in their hushed conversations, in the looks they give him when they come to see the healer, in the way they flinch when they’re reminded he’s in the tent with them. They don’t know whether to trust one of the people that causes them so much pain, and honestly, he doesn’t blame them for it. He’s seen the consequences of the Seheron war on the natives, and he knows he is, in part, responsible for the hell that consumes their current lives.

Araci brings him books that reminds him of the ones he read during study time when he was Imekari, thick and foreign and old, but hers are more technical and talk about the flow of mana in one’s body and channeling healing energy with either your hands or with the help of a staff. It all makes him nervous; he has no idea how to channel magic. The only time he did so he was panicking and he didn’t mean to do it.

He tells Araci that, and she nods solemnly. She holds his hands, her own fingers warming up over his skin, and although he masks his nervousness of her casual show of magic abilities, she smiles as if she just _knows_.

“Feel it, bull-child. Within your core, in your very soul, filling your insides with energy. Picture it as something you must set free from within in measured doses. Mold and manipulate this energy into becoming what you want. Control it and never let it control _you_.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he whispers, closing his eyes and taking deep breaths. He concentrates, takes his meditation position, groaning at his stiff leg, and does as he’s told; tries to _feel_. But he doesn’t know what exactly he’s supposed to be feeling, so after long, frustrating minutes, he frowns, eyes still closed.

“Here, child,” Araci whispers, placing a warm palm over the space between his belly and his chest, and _there_ , there he notices a low thrumming like a purring cat, like a tiny moth fluttering beneath his ribcage. “Do you feel it?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Then _control it_. Move it up towards your extremities, like a muscle.” She leans closer, and he opens one of his eyes a bit. “And be careful not to fart, dear.”

He barks out a laugh, his cheeks warming up, and Araci chuckles fondly. He closes his eye again, takes a new deep breath, and feels again the little thing inside his core. If he thinks on it, that fluttering feeling has always been there, getting increasingly more intense whenever he’s nervous or happy; but he’s always trained so hard to suppress his emotions it’s always been something small, almost insignificant, something he’s never paid much attention to. Something that’s always been a part of him, that he never cared to look into. It never bothered him, never gave him reason to believe it wasn’t something that everyone else had as well.

He frowns, concentrating, and _pushes_ , forcing down on it as he would flex a muscle, as if he was trying to almost burp it out from deep inside his chest. He feels a warming sensation growing and building in his belly as he does so, running up behind his ribs and towards his arms uncomfortably. A low whine escapes his throat as he remembers the feeling of fire on his veins, a result of the control rod as it’s wielded, and he hears Araci shushing him.

“Peace, child. Do not fear it. It’s part of you, it won’t harm you. And it won’t do harm unless you will it to. Focus on the good, on the soothing, and it will follow your lead.”

He forces himself to slow his breathing, pushes the feeling further down, towards the tips of his fingers and up through his neck, noticing how the warmth doesn’t feel oppressing anymore; it just feels comfortable, familiar. A low warmth that hugs him and soothes him, moving up and down his limbs and tingling at the tip of his fingers.

Before he knows it he’s not _pushing_ anymore; if he just concentrates he can feel it flowing, but more than just feel it he can _control_ it. How much of it goes to the palm of his hand, the tip of his fingers, or the back of his throat, and how much stays at the center of his chest, either ready to be pushed back or drawn out.

“ _Look_ ,” Araci whispers, and he opens his eyes.

At the palm of his hands are piles of snow, the flakes shimmering with the flicker of the candles inside the tent. He looks with wonder, admiring how it doesn’t feel cold at all, and how the bottom of the piles doesn’t melt against his skin. He forces the feeling again and the tip of his fingers turn blue, even more snow piling up on his hand.

“Oh, how quaint, bull-child!”

He looks up, releasing the hold he has on the thing inside him and letting it settle back in between his ribs, shaking the now melting snow off his hands and frowning. “Why do you keep calling me that?”

“Bull-child?” She asks, and at his nod, she shrugs. “Your horns, they remind me of our cattle, and in my eyes you are but a child. What would you like me to call you instead?”

He stops and considers this. _Saarebas_ is at the tip of his tongue, the most logical answer to her question, but he hesitates. What would I _like_ her to call me?, he asks himself, and _not Saarebas_ is the first answer he finds. Saaarebas _scares_ him. Calling himself Saarebas feels like walking with both boots on the wrong feet; they fit, but they bother him to a maddening degree. Imekari was fine, Ashkaari was right, and Hissrad was a worthy title. Saarebas, to him, never really was.

“I’m already twenty-one, I’m not a child anymore,” he says petulantly in lieu of answering, and Araci smiles sympathetically.

“How about just Bull, then?”

 _Bull_. An animal made of pure muscle power, useful to the people, important if not essential to entire villages to sustain themselves.

He lifts his head and throws his shoulders back, nodding once, lips pressed tightly together.

“Yeah, just Bull is fine.”

 

\---

 

And just like that, even though it felt odd to pick his own title - or name, rather - he is now Bull.

After about a month confined inside Araci’s tent, learning how to cope with his now ever-present magic and slightly bum leg, Bull leaves to roam the village, glad to have the sun on his torso and a creek to bathe in. The villagers, despite the first few days filled with suspicion and worry, quickly embrace him as one of their own, going so far as to joke around about having never seen a Bull that does magic before.

He learns how to do small things, useful little things like how to summon a flame or a spark to light up fires, bring forth ice to apply to minor injuries or chill a bowl of water, and even thicken the air around him to create a force field. He digs into his magical studies with rapt interest, and when he eventually scratches himself on a tree branch he uses what little he’s learned of creation magic to heal the wound perfectly. He’s never been more proud of something so small before.

He has a nagging feeling it cannot last, this peace and happiness that feels almost bucolic, but before he knows it a whole year goes by, then two and three, in what feels like the blink of an eye, and Bull forgets to worry about the fact that he’s in Seheron. He helps give birth to two dozen children as Araci’s assistant, buys himself a leg brace, and helps every day with the farm animals and the crops by doing the things that the humans and elves, so much smaller and weaker than him, cannot do on their own. The dreams he can now control better, and they aren’t remotely as bad as they used to be, thanks to Araci’s patient instructions; it almost feels like a miracle.

Bull, although he dares not say it out loud, is comfortable and happy for maybe the first time in many, many years.

He’s carrying sacks of corn back to the village one sunny afternoon, his brace clacking with each step he takes and sweat running down his forehead, when he sees movement at the corner of his eye.

But when he turns around it’s gone.

Bull frowns, keeps walking, pays extra attention to his surroundings. Something prickles at the back of his neck, and he feels - rather, he _knows_ he’s being watched. The oak wood staff strapped to his back bumps against his bottom with every step he takes, and a simple sheathed sword hits against his right thigh; both are a comforting reminder that they’re ready to be used in a heartbeat. He tightens his grip on the sack of corn and walks faster.

Bull takes a wrong turn deliberately, walks a few meters into the trees, away from the village proper, then drops the sack and deftly pulls his sword free, pointing it towards where he last heard a twig snap. “Who's there?!” He shouts, looking around. A shrubs rustles, and Bull turns towards it. “I know you’re there. Just come out already.”

First he sees a tuft of brown hair, then the tip of a pointy ear. He has the name at the tip of his tongue before the elf reveals himself completely.

“Gatt!” Bull exclaims, smiling and sheathing his sword. “It’s so good to see you again!” Gatt, however, eyes the staff at his back and frowns.

“I _knew_ you were alive. What are you _doing_ here?”

“Ah, shit.” Bull rubs the back of his neck, embarrassed. “A healer at my village rescued me. I was half dead when she found me.”

“At _your_ village? Hissrad, this-- this isn’t you! A staff?! A rusty, cheap sword?!  _Farmer_ ’s clothes?! You are a _spy_ , a soldier of the Qun! How could you have left the Qun behind?”

“I _haven't_ ,” Bull says with conviction, throwing his shoulders back and glaring. Gatt flinches. “I am still Qunari.”

“Good, then leave all that ‘ _my village_ ’ nonsense behind and come back with me! I’ve been telling the Antaam you were still alive when I couldn't find your body, and _no one_ believed me. I’ve been looking for you for _years_. Why in Koslun’s name didn’t you turn yourself in once you were better?! The Qun _needs_ you!”

Bull stops, hesitates. He remembers the antaam discussing how to better restrain him, _dismember_ him, remembers the disregard with which Arvaarad treated him, how he barely seemed to think him as a Qunari anymore. The pain he felt every time the rod was wielded, the burning on his fingers when he was forced to cast fire and ice and explosive barriers. He touches the collar still around his neck, weighing down on his shoulders, the worn out cuffs around his wrists, both restrains impossible to be removed, no matter how many times anyone attempted to break them. He’s long since given up on trying.

He believed in the Qun, but in the end, the Qun prefered to believe him to be an abomination rather than a man.

“I can’t.”

Gatt blanched.

“What?”

“I can’t, Gatt. If I go back, either they’ll put me under the control of another Arvaarad, or _worse_ , they’ll feed me qamek for not reporting back right away. And I... I _can’t_.”

 _I’m scared_ , he wants to say, but the words get lodged up on his throat. He never refused the Qun, never questioned the decisions made for him, the roles picked for him, but now he fears going back. He would be treated as a _thing_ again instead of a person, and although he won’t admit it out loud he fears it more than anything.

Gatt first looks taken aback, then mad, then disappointed, all in the span of a few seconds. His voice drops low, menacing and bitter. Sharp as the knife he used to kill his old master.

“You were my mentor, Hissrad. My _friend_. I trusted you with my life.”

“And I trusted the Qun with mine, dedicated myself to it,” Bull says, picking the corn sack off the floor and throwing it back over his shoulders, “and in the end they left me for dead. I’m sorry, Gatt, but I can’t. Go back to the Ben Hassrath, forget about me. I’m not Hissrad, and I’m not Saarebas either. Not anymore. They think me dead, and it’s best for both of us if it stays that way.”

“Filthy Tal-Vashoth,” Gatt spits out, each syllable dripping with venom, and it chills Bull to the core. He pinches his lips together and turns back around towards the village, not looking back.

“Asit tal-eb,” He whispers, hearing the brush of the shrubs again, signaling that Gatt is gone. For now.

Gatt will be back. And he can’t be around to find out who he’ll bring with him.

 

\---

 

The village folks have a sack full of sovereigns they’d managed to find in battlefields before the Antaam picked them clean. Araci puts the bag on his hands, so massive compared to her own, and grips his fingers tightly. He worries greatly about the village, but they assured him they’d be fine. They’d deal with whoever came eventually, as they always do.

“Row until you find land, then travel to the south. There you’ll be safe.” Araci’s hands tremble, her eyes welling up with tears. Bull bites the inside of his cheek.

“Thank you. For everything.” Bull whispers, tears prickling the corner of his own eyes, and she lays a kiss on each of his cheeks.

The seas are calm under his paddles, the sun high up in the sky, the massive hat he used when working on the plantations tied tightly around his head, protecting him from sunburn. It takes him long, arduous hours until he sees land, the full moon lighting his way when the boat hits soft sand at a small, isolated beach. He makes camp, sleeps until his aches are gone, then marches on when the sun is back up again.

Days goes by, and the first place Bull finds that signals any civilization is a tavern, old and rickety and noisy at the edge of an old and empty road. He hesitates at first; a huge seven foot tall Qunari, with shackles on his wrists and neck, is certainly not a common sight around these parts. But he has no idea where he is or where he should go, so he trudges on - maybe he can even convince the owner to rent him a room for a gold coin or two.

When he opens the door, it is chaos that finds him.

Four men, clad in Tevinter army garbs, roundup on another men, smaller but stocky, backed up against a table. Each soldier has a different weapon, and the cornered men has what looks to be just a simple hammer. They’re spouting insults at the cornered man in Tevinter, and the little he knows is enough: Traitor. Liar. Disgrace. _Woman_.

Aqun-Athlok, he suspects. Humans are always fucking weird about anything that falls off their norm, and they seem _angry_.

A maul is halfway down an arch through the air when Bull pulls his staff from his back and casts.

The maul springs back when it hits his barrier, and in the heat of the moment Bull charges, screams and pierces the chest of the man on the far corner with his horn. The man with the maul quickly recovers and swings it again, changes targets and connects it onto the side of Bull’s bad knee, and he roars with pain, swishing his head to throw the dead man bleeding on his rack atop one of the soldiers now double-teaming onto the cornered man. One of them falls to the floor, and the hammer on the hand of the aqun-athlok connects cleanly with the cranium of the man left standing before he can finish the arc of his sword.

The maul gets dislodged from Bull’s leg with a swift and painful yank, the tevinter lifting it to strike once again, and Bull parries it with one of his wrist cuffs, the impact sending vibrations up his arm all the way to his clavicle. The soldier hesitates for a fraction of a second, and it’s all it takes for Bull to swing a punch to his jaw, breaking it instantly. He falls to the floor, out cold.

He gasps when he tries to put weight on his injury, agonizing pain shooting up his thigh, and the aqun-athlok, who apparently left his hammer lodged in the face of the last soldier before he even had a chance to get off the floor, helps ease Bull down onto a chair. He has a black eye and a bleeding cut on his arm, but otherwise he looks fine.

“Shit. That maul was for _me_ , man.”

Bull eyes the gory mess that is now the knee of his bum leg. He grips his staff tighter, then puts the tip of it and his palm over his injuries. He never learned how to heal wounds as deep as this one, but he deals with the worst of it and sighs as the pain subsides.

“Hey, Qunari have thicker skin, sturdier bones. Better me than you, right?”

The man looks at him, bewildered, then shuts his mouth and nods.

“Right. And you’re a qunari mage. In a tavern at the border of Tevinter.”

“Shit, is that where I am?” Bull sighs, rubs his face with his hand then frowns when he realizes it’s dirty with blood. “Ah, Koslun’s balls. I have no sense of direction sometimes.”

“Where were you going anyway?”

Bull shrugs. “Away. To the south. I was thinking maybe Ferelden, or Orlais, get a job doing something useful.”

“So am I.” He reaches out his hand, and Bull shakes it. “Name’s Cremisius. Cremisius Aclassi.”

“Bull.”

“Well, Bull, think you can help me get the trash out?” He points at the bodies on the floor, the inn owner frowning and glaring at them both, and Bull barks out a laugh, shaking his head. “And then let's get ourselves some drinks. On me, as thanks for saving my ass.”

Bull drags the men out with Krem, pays the owner three sovereigns for his troubles and for a room for each of them, and he tries his first ale with the Tevinter runaway; bitter, yet cold and smooth. He finds that he wouldn't mind a second mug of it.

He wakes up hours later in an uncomfortable bed but a bed nonetheless, Cremisius snoring on his own bed on the other side of the room, face buried in the pillows to block out the sunlight that woke Bull. The bag with his belongings sits at the corner of the room, his staff leaning against the wall.

He grins. Maybe his trip to the south won't be as lonely as he first thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry it took me so long to post it, but here we are!  
> Thank you [Dee](http://dichotomous-dragon.tumblr.com) for beta'ing this chapter for me, you're the best <3 The next chapter is when things start to roll. All feedback is appreciated!


	3. The Inquisition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bull and Dorian, against all odds, cross paths, and thus begins a tentative friendship unlike any other Thedas has ever seen before.

The sky is torn open, and the world is thrown into chaos.

 

\---

 

Dorian shivers; even after so many years in the south he hasn’t gotten used to the cold wind that occasionally breezes past him for no reason whatsoever - except maybe to spite him. He’s utterly convinced that the weather knows he hates it, and sends down cold rain and chilly breezes just to see him shiver.

Felix’s recent letter has, honestly, surprised him; he’d long heard murmurs of people from Tevinter that want to restore the Imperium to its former glory. And who hasn’t heard of them, really? Compared to the old days, Tevinter isn’t even half of what it was, but Dorian wonders why people are so adamant on going backwards instead of forward. He’s embarrassed to share his beloved country with these people.

And to know that one of these airheads was one of Alexius’s apprentices? That they lived under his own roof and took advantage of the Alexius hospitality?

Needless to say, Dorian is _livid_.

He arrives in Redcliffe in the morning, and immediately spots young circle mages mingling among the villagers, standing awkwardly in their characteristic robes and talking in hushed voices, shy and wondering whether they truly belong. Dorian feels for them; not too long ago he was exactly like them. Felix’s letter didn’t go into details, but along the road he’s heard rumours of what happened.

The Temple of Sacred Ashes was blown to debris, taking the life of everyone attending the peace summit, mages and templars and chantry members alike, including the Divine Victoria herself. The sole survivor, a dalish elf, has yet to prove if she’s responsible or not for the death of so many people. The remaining mages in Ferelden and Orlais, who were in hiding, waiting for the results of the talks with hopeful anticipation, are now desperately trying to figure out what to do, or where they stand.

And in their desperation they seem to have accepted the deal that Dorian and Felix’s former colleague has offered them, although why exactly Felix has yet to elaborate.

Dorian sits in a dark corner table on the local tavern, orders a warm meal, and puts his silverite staff aside, sighing softly. A cloaked figure approaches the free chair next to his own, and Dorian immediately recognizes the man by his way of walking before he even removes his heavy cloak.

“Brother,” Felix says softly, a warm smile on his lips, and Dorian leans in to hug him, their relieved laughter muffled on each other’s shoulders. “Look at you, Dorian! You look well.”

“So do you, my friend. Is that a slight Orlesian accent I detect?”

Felix’s cheeks darken as he presses his lips together. “Don’t even joke about it. Orlais will have to pry my Tevinter heritage from my cold, dead body.”

“Fair enough,” Dorian laughs once more, thanking the waitress as she brings him a plate of warm eggs and slices of bacon, along with a mug of water. He takes a bite of the food before nodding to Felix. “Tell me the news, then. How are things?”

Things, turns out, are not good. The breach in the sky means that not only demons are descending upon the land by the droves, but smaller rips in the fade are appearing randomly in Ferelden and Orlais, as if the veil has been severely weakened and is being ripped apart of its own volition little by little.

“There’s one _inside_ the chantry,” he says, sobering up. Dorian lifts his brows. “The Herald is almost here, last I heard, but the demons are threatening to break the door down. The villagers are frightened, and the circle mages even more so. I was hoping you could help me take care of it.”

Dorian lifts a brow, confused. “Herald?”

Felix nods. “I’m sure you’ve heard of the dalish elf that survived the explosion. She has a mark on her hand that can close the rifts. Everyone’s saying she’s the Herald of Andraste.”

A dalish elf, Herald of Andraste. After the canticle of Shartan was removed from the chant. Dorian imagines the irony isn’t lost on the supposed Herald.

“And by ‘help you’ get rid of the demons in the chantry you mean ‘take care of it myself’, don’t you?”

Felix grins, shrugs. “You know how menial my magic is, Dorian. I’d only get in the way.”

“You, my friend? _Never_.”

 

\---

 

Dorian is getting rid of the last demon with a swift whack of one of the blunt ends of his staff, its sharp point slicing the creature’s face open, when the chantry’s doors open. The creatures are macabre-looking, but he’s gone against tougher hooligans in his years working in Ferelden as a bodyguard, and compared to the darkspawn he’d once had to fend off, they’re nothing but a breeze. He looks back, his forehead damp with sweat, his muscles aching, and his eyes fall straight onto the lithe woman in front of the group, green dalish markings on her face contrasting beautifully with her darker skin tone, a long braid thrown over her shoulder. One of her hands glows eerily.

“Oh, good, you must be the Herald everyone’s talking about. Mind giving me a hand?”

She makes a face, but approaches and helps him anyway, closing the rift as soon as the last of the demons is dispatched. Dorian wipes his brow on the back of his hand, then looks over at the group she’s brought with her: a bald elf that looks highly unamused, a blonde dwarf with an incredible contraption balanced on his hands, and up and up _and up_ he looks towards a pair of uniquely wide horns framed by black coarse hair and a thick metal collar that sits on the shoulders of the biggest Qunari he’s ever seen.

And behind them all stands Felix, looking surreptitiously at the qunari, his eyes wide as he mouths _‘Maker bless me_ ’ to Dorian. It takes all he has not to snort.

“Careful, boss,” the Qunari says, his eyes glinting as he grins, “the pretty ones are always the worst.”

Dorian is taken aback, but he clears his throat and turns his focus back to the Herald. “My lady; I thank you for your assistance. Dorian Alexius, originally from house Pavus, at your service. I see you’ve met my good friend and foster brother, Felix Alexius?”

“We haven’t really been properly introduced,” she says as Felix steps up and offers his hand, and she takes it and shakes it. “Iloren Lavellan, at your service.”

“Iloren, like the Keeper from the first Blight. A beautiful name.”

Her eyes light up, eyebrows shooting up in surprise. “You’ve heard of him. A Tevinter mage has heard of Keeper Iloren.”

“You’ll find that me and my dear brother are not only skillful fighters and painfully good-looking,” Dorian says, wrapping an arm around Felix’s shoulders and making him laugh awkwardly, “but we are also scholars who have dedicated their lives to studying all sorts of subjects. Elvhen history is just as important as any other, especially when one resides in Tevinter.”

She eyes Dorian warily, clearly bothered by something but not completely off-put by him, and nods. “So you got rid of the demons here on your own. Impressive, I’d say.”

Just then the doors of the chantry burst open, loud and hurried footsteps echoing in the walls. “You say that because you haven’t seen him dispatch of _ten_ darkspawn with barely any help whatsoever!”

The voice is immediately recognizable, and Dorian widens his eyes as Iloren turns around, startled. “Gereon!”

“Dorian, my son,” Gereon Alexius exclaims, walking right past Iloren’s ragtag group and the Herald herself as if they aren’t there at all, embracing Dorian in a tight grip. “Oh, how I’ve missed you. How has Ferelden treated you?”

“Poorly, overall, but I’ll live. Gereon, what are you _doing_ here?”

“Why, the same thing you and Felix are! Trying to find the culprit that stole my research, of course. You don’t think I’d miss the opportunity to smite the imbecile myself, did you?”

“Um... am I interrupting something?”

Gereon turns around, eyes wide and mouth open, almost as if he’s just seen Iloren standing there. “Oh, of course, how rude of me! Gereon Alexius, milady, at your service. You must be the Herald of Andraste everyone’s talking about.”

Iloren wrinkles her nose as if she’s smelled something foul, but allows Gereon to take her hand and shake it. “Please, none of this Herald nonsense. I’m Iloren Lavellan, or just Lavellan. And these are my companions, Solas, Varric Tethras and Iron Bull.”

“Varric Tethras? _The_ Varric Tethras?” Felix exclaims, face lighting up, and he darts forward when the dwarf, Varric, laughs deep in his belly. “Oh by the creators! I never thought...”

Their conversation is muffled as the elf and the qunari step forward, both shaking hands politely with Dorian and Gereon. The elf’s hand is surprisingly soft and horribly spindly, but the qunari’s is calloused and _warm_ , so big it engulfs Dorian’s own completely. Dorian feels the Qunari holding back his grip, but he squeezes his fingers as hard as possible, to make a good first impression with a confident, firm handshake just as he’s learned. One of the qunari’s eyebrows lifts, just a tiny bit, before he steps back, looking amused. Dorian straightens his back and lifts his chin, just an inch, to dare him to say something. He doesn’t.

They gather around the pew and discuss the situation at hand: Gereon and Dorian discovered the secret to time travel not too long ago, and although they came to the conclusion that the magic was bound not to work when trying to move big chunks of space through time, they saw how dangerous it was if handled by the wrong people with the wrong intentions, so they put away their notes and moved on to other studies.

“But it seems that a member of the the Venatori, a group of Tevinter fanatics, desperate to bring back the former glory of the Imperium, has stolen it from my study. He was an apprentice of my wife, Livia, and until recently I’d assumed he was a good, trustworthy man.” Gereon sighs, rubbing his forehead as if tired. Felix puts a hand over his shoulder.

“We’ve all been tricked, sadly,” Felix continues, shaking his head. “We came back to the manor one day to find him and his things gone, with no warning, and the book in my father’s study missing, along with a pendant that he used to focus the time magic energy.”

“And so he came here to recruit the mages for Corypheus?” Iloren asks, lifting a single brow. Dorian wonders who Corypheus might be, but refrains from interrupting the Herald to ask. “But it doesn’t make sense. What would he gain by joining with Corypheus?”

“I talked to one of the mages he recruited yesterday when I arrived,” Dorian supplies. “It seems he wants to use the time magic to go back and avoid the death of his sister, which he blames himself for, but even with the pendant he can’t go further than before the breach was torn. His master, who I now assume might be this Corypheus person, promised he’d give him the power he needs to bring his sister back if he joined the Venatori and swore himself to his service, and so he did.”

Gereon sighs deeply, his frown deepening. “Magnus, Magnus, what have you done, my boy...”

“Well, we’ve scheduled to meet with him later, to hear what he has to say,” Iloren says, nodding once, resolute. “Let’s come up with a plan to stop this wacko, shall we?”

 

\---

 

Felix, Gereon and Dorian are invited back to the campground where Iloren has settled, to meet up with a Seeker of Truth called Cassandra. After a brief discussion of the best plan of action, she orders Bull to stay behind and for Cassandra to join them when they go and talk to Magnus in Redcliffe, and for the Alexius family to wait for them to come back along with Bull. Once the four of them are gone, Dorian sits down on a log by the fire, and Gereon sits next to him, throwing an arm around his shoulders.

“It’s so nice to see you again, Dorian. Livia misses you greatly.”

“And I her. I assume she stayed in Tevinter?”

“She did indeed. Taking care of magisterium affairs while Felix and I came down to resolve this nasty business.” He sighs, tired. “Tevinter has been getting worse and worse ever since you left us, Dorian.”

“Father’s right,” Felix says, sitting on Dorian’s other side. “And this isn’t just me buttering you up, brother. Most of these Venatori have the support of the Magisterium, and it’s quite awful to watch them rise in power.”

“Tevinter, going on a downwards spiral as usual.” Dorian sighs, leaning against Felix and grinning. “Sometimes I really do miss home.”

The subject is quickly deviated to brighter things; Dorian talks about the places he’s seen, retells some of the stories of jobs he’s taken, talks about his struggles with the south. Every now and then, usually during pauses in the conversation, Dorian looks at the qunari mage, sitting a few feet away from the three men by the opening of his tent, sharpening a longsword over his thigh.

He’d be lying if he said he’s not curious. A saarebas with intact horns - and _what horns_ he has, too - and a collar so worn down its designs are nigh invisible. Dorian has seen few qunari down south, although they’re not that common in Ferelden, but he’s never seen one quite so _big_. It’s intimidating, but at the same time, it piques Dorian’s interest like nothing else has in a long, long time.

Iloren returns about an hour later, asking to speak with Gereon. He and Felix move to speak to her in private, and Dorian takes the cue to move from his spot and sit next to the qunari.

“Hello,” Dorian says as the man eyes him wearily. “I believe we weren’t properly introduced. You’re the Iron Bull, correct?”

“Yup,” he says, setting his sword aside. “And you’re Dorian.” A pause as he looks Dorian up and down with a quick sweep of his eyes. “No offense, but you look nothing like a Tevinter Altus like your brother.”

Dorian knows he should be taken aback, maybe even offended, and a few years back he would’ve been; but right now he’s not, because he knows Bull is right. His hair is shaved on the sides and choppy on top, his mustache is unkempt and his beard is overgrown, and his leathers are more practical than pretty. He misses the robes he used to wear, sewed with gold thread, encrusted with jewels and pearls, made of the finest silk and the softest cotton that money could buy, crafted specifically to accentuate his curves and elevate his looks. But he couldn’t, not in a million years, bring these with him when he came to the south.

“Well, when one works as a bodyguard, titles like Altus aren’t exactly useful, and clothes that show wealth and prestige aren’t really practical.” Dorian hesitates, clears his throat. “And I’m not an Altus. I’m Soporati.”

At that, the qunari widens his eyes. “Son of a magister but not a mage?” He asks, surprised. Dorian chuckles.

“Let’s just say the sons of the Alexius family aren’t really known for their magical abilities. Felix and I work much better with theory.” He points to Bull’s cuffs and neckpiece. “A runaway qunari mage around these parts is much less heard of, however.”

“Hm.” Bull grunts softly, lifts his wrists as he looks at his shackles. “Runaway, huh. That obvious?”

“Well, clearly you’re not Vashoth, as they would never shackle their own mages, and Qunari I imagine you’re also not, since I see no Arvaarad around, and they would never leave a mage out of the sight of their soldiers. That only leaves Tal-Vashoth.”

Bull nods, face twisted, almost as if uncomfortable, lowering his head so that the lower half of his face is hidden behind the collar. “Spot-on. You’ve done your cultural research, I see.”

Silence stretches between them. Dorian looks around, and Iloren seems to have finished her talk with Gereon, who now stands to the side with Felix. _Giving me space_ , he thinks, smiling fondly.

He touches Bull’s forearm, gently, and Bull looks at the hand like it has personally offended him.

“For what it’s worth, I am sorry.”

“For what?” Bull asks, sounding almost angry. But he doesn’t pull away, and Dorian takes it as a good sign.

“I know how it is, to be trained your whole life for a role, and then being forced onto another, only to be rejected by your very own culture, your country, your peers.”

Bull narrows his eyes. “And what makes you think I wasn't trained to be Saarebas from the start, _bas_?”

“The greatsword,” Dorian says, gesturing to it. Bull looks down. The sharpened weapon still rests next to him on the grass, ready for the taking. “Judging by the care you have with it, I’m assuming it is your weapon of choice, first and foremost, while your staff lays neglected on the back of your tent. From what I’ve learned, no mage, trained since birth to wield their magic as their primary weapon, would've preferred a melee weapon over their staff.”

Bull looks at him again, eyes sharper. “You have a good eye, ‘Vint.”

Dorian chuckles, and squeezes Bull’s forearm once before getting to his feet. “This, however, is a tale for some other time, I believe. Perhaps over drinks, in a warm tavern?”

“Perhaps,” Bull says, still looking at Dorian, eyes sharp and attentive, and although Dorian knows it should make him uneasy, he simply bows down, a hand over his chest and another folded on his back. He then gets up in a fluid motion and turns back towards Gereon and Felix, who has an eyebrow so high up it could vanish into his hairline.

 _Perhaps_ , after all, is not a no.

 

\---

 

The sun is setting when their group return in full to Redcliffe. Magnus is in the chantry, and Iloren goes in to negotiate with him, Gereon, Dorian and Felix barging in at the right moment to try and convince him to strand down. Next thing he knows, Magnus has pulled the time pendant out of his robes, and when Gereon and Iloren step forward to stop him, the two of them disappear in thin air.

“Well,” Bull says after a moment of silence where no one knows exactly what to do. “That just happened.”

“Seize them!” Magnus howls to his guards, and just as they step forward and Iloren’s companions take a stance to fight back, a blinding light appears again, and from it comes Gereon and Iloren.

“Father!” Felix shouts, relieved, and Gereon, when he looks at him, looks worn out and traumatized, almost as if he hasn’t disappeared for a mere ten seconds. Dorian imagines he hasn’t if anything he knows about time magic is true.

Iloren points a sword at Magnus’ throat, demands that he stand down, and he quickly surrenders. Iloren then promises aid and refuge to all mages, and Gereon runs up to Dorian and Felix, where he embraces them both in a tight hug.

“What happened?” Dorian asks, returning the hug as he exchanges confused looks with Felix. “Where did you and the Herald vanish to?”

“Oh, my sons,” he says with a sigh, “you don’t want to know.”

They all make the track back to Haven along with the Herald’s entourage, Gereon and Iloren explaining what they saw in the future they were sent to - lyrium poisoning, death and destruction, and truly, Dorian and Felix agree that they really didn’t want to know - and although Redcliffe isn’t the warmest of places, Dorian considers Haven to be a personal affront.

“Snow. Everywhere. And not a single building to sleep in; no, we have to share tents. _In the snow_.”

“Come, now, brother. Don’t be such a whiny baby, or the Herald might have you stay awake with the soldiers on evening duty just to spite you.”

Dorian chuckles. “I wouldn’t mind having one of them keeping me warm,” he says, and Felix scoffs and playfully pushes Dorian’s shoulder.

“You’re incorrigible, Dorian. Didn’t doing hard work in Ferelden fix you at all?”

“My dearest, you and I both know the universe cannot fix what’s already perfect as it is.”

“Please don’t tell me you’ve developed a taste for rugged and hairy Ferelden men, brother.”

“I wouldn’t go so far, but they did have such warm beds during cold winter nights.” Dorian wrinkles his nose. “I could, however, do with men who have a greater taste for warm baths and personal hygiene.”

Felix laughs, Dorian laughs with him, and both almost forget they haven’t seen each other for the past four years.

Days in Haven pass by slowly. Rebel mages join their number, along with people running from the war in nearby regions, and soon things start to feel more official than they did the first day Dorian arrived.

The time to close the rift in the sky fast approaches; Dorian helps however he can with the preparations, while Gereon and Felix return to Tevinter with promises to aid the Herald’s quest however they can. Dorian runs some errands with her and her ever growing companions through the Hinterlands, and Dorian takes joy in fighting regularly again - demons and bandits are a common sight wherever they go, and slowly but surely he gets to show off his abilities and preen a little with all the praise he gets.

Bull, however, is a sight and a half in a fight.

He has little to no finesse, but he makes up for it in raw power. His simple oak staff seems to glow from within like an ember whenever he casts, and his body movements are a mix of melee stances and magical channeling forms. It could do with some refining, but Bull is good at quickly analyzing a situation and taking care of it swiftly and efficiently. He emanates raw power, and it’s gorgeous to see.

They share a tent the first day, then the second, and when Iloren sees how well they get along - which is to say, they make minimal noise and are not at each other’s throats - she decides that they can share whenever they both come along for their unofficial missions. Dorian doesn’t mind; Bull is a gracious companion, constantly mindful of his sheer size and the space he occupies, always keeping his space neat and organized and making sure that he’s not a bother. Dorian appreciates the gestures after having shared with so many Ferelden who  cared for nothing but their own comfort.

One day, Bull is folding his pants after returning from the creek where he bathed, and Dorian chuckles. Bull looks up.

“What?” He asks, and Dorian shakes his head, suddenly realizing that his reaction might have not been so appropriate.

“Forgive me, it’s not you, it’s just-- When you came in, it reminded me of something that happened to me, soon after I came to Ferelden, is all.”

Bull sits on his bedroll, buttons up his sleep shirt, looking at Dorian the entire time. Dorian looks up after a full minute of silence, and Bull waves a hand in the air. “So? Come on, you can’t say that and leave me hanging.”

“I suppose not,” Dorian agrees, smiling. “Well. I had been in Ferelden for about three months. I had just accepted a job as the bodyguard of a minor lord, who is constantly having his manor invaded by bandits during the night. So in the day, while I was asleep, the lord had another bodyguard, and he decided we’d share a small servant’s room, since we wouldn’t ever use it simultaneously. And this guy... think Blackwall, but without all the Orlesian. He’s tall, wide, has a bit of a belly and arms that could crush a lesser man. Absolutely my type of man, if only his face wasn’t hidden by a bush of unkempt beard and the raggiest hair I had ever laid my poor eyes on.”

Bull laughs, and Dorian powers on. “So I bathe at least once every two days - the lord is kind enough to give us a room with an attached chamber for bathing and whatnot - and one day, about two weeks since I started work, Conall is lying in bed, clearly awake, arms behind his head and legs crossed at the knee, and I’m just stepping out of the chamber, fresh from my bath, and he’s watching me. I pay no mind and start folding my clothes, when he decides to finally spit it out. ‘Why you do that for’,” Dorian mimics, deepening his voice and turning his lips down in an exaggerated frown, making Bull chortle. “I look at him, confused, and he waves his hand in the air like he’s struggling to recall the word for this deeply confusing activity that I engage in every other night. He eventually rememembers. ‘Bathe. It’s so... useless. Such a waste of time. You’re just going to get dirt on ya again just like that. Makes no sense to me’ _._ You have no idea how hard it was to keep a straight face after hearing that.”

Bull grins, rests his elbows on his knees and leans forward. “Can’t imagine he was getting many women like that.”

Dorian blows a raspberry. “You’d think so. But Ferelden women don’t seem to care much either way, since I met a few trying to sneak out of his bed as I was arriving after the end of my shift. It’s honestly beyond me. Anyhow. I look at him, stinking up the room with his pungent body odor, as usual, and wonder how to make my point without actually offending him too badly.”

“A true feat.”

“Precisely, thank you for acknowledging my struggle. So I’m looking at him, confused at the line of questioning, honestly a bit outraged at his gall, wondering at what point have I gotten to have a person ask me, _why bathe_. A question I didn’t know exactly how to answer then, and will not know how to answer now if someone asks me again, as I will be too busy having painful flashbacks. So I’m looking at him, struggling to keep my face straight, wondering if he’s out of his mind, maybe gone crazy from the smell of his own body odor, but no, he’s serious, expecting an honest to Maker answer to such a mind-dumbing, _outrageous_ question, and I’m trying to unscramble my thoughts into something cohesive and mildly polite, because after I say whatever it is that I’m going to say I will still have to share a room with this man, and I’d like for my personal belongings to still be intact when I wake up in the evening, thank you very much.”

At this point Bull is howling with laughter, a hand covering his eyes and wiping his tears; Dorian keeps going, laughing a bit himself, but trying to keep it together so he can finish his story.

“So after a few seconds of what’s quickly becoming really awkward silence, I still can’t think of what to say, so I blurt out, ‘I honestly feel awful for the next person who puts their face anywhere near your ballsack’. And he widens his eyes until they're the size of dinner plates, his jaw drops, and I climb into bed and wish him a good morning. Like nothing happened.”

“Koslun’s _ass_ ,” Bull wheezes, still laughing, now lying in his bedroll as he struggles to breathe. “How are you still alive?!”

“Honestly? I don’t know. But it turns out Conall had a revelation that day with my comment. He began bathing on the days when I didn’t, and as you can imagine I was pleasantly surprised but didn’t comment on it out of fear of ruining such a blessed thing; I went on as if that was the norm, and one time, as he was stepping out of the bath, he gave me this tiny nod, the kind that you can’t even see if you’re not paying close attention, and I just nodded right back, and that was that. The next time a lady sneaked out of our room in the morning, he caught me by the arm with the goofiest grin on his face and said, with the most heartfelt voice I have ever heard him speak in, ‘ _thank you_ ’. It was honestly touching. We became good friends after that.”

Bull’s laughter is just winding down, fingers rubbing at his teary eyes, when he turns to Dorian. “By good friends do you mean you ended up fucking?”

Dorian hums, inspecting his nails and acting innocent. “After I convinced him to shave off that terrible looking beard, that is. Gave that man some extra revelations he never even thought were possible to have.”

“You’re doing the Maker’s work Dorian, changing people’s lives for the best.”

“Naturally,” he says, grinning. “It’s your turn now.”

“Hm?” Bull lifts a brow, fluffs up his pillow.

“Your turn to tell a story. I demand a good one. Mine wasn’t even the best I have, and look at you now, weeping with joy.”

Bull chuckles, turns in his bedroll to fiddle with his blankets, then settles belly-up, staring at the top of the tent. Dorian copies his stance and waits, patiently.

He’s nearly asleep when he hears Bull’s voice, deep and low, not a trace of the laughter that rendered him speechless just minutes before.

“I lived all my life in Par Vollen and Seheron. Hot, humid, juicy fruits at the tip of your fingers at the branch of every tree. So you can imagine how it was, coming to the south for the first time. No mosquitos in banana trees, no small insects in the tall grass, no warmth in a sunny day. I would sometimes sit outside whatever inn we were staying in and glare at the sun for not warming me up.”

Dorian chuckles. He knows exactly the feel. He’s done the same thing countless of times.

“So I’m sitting there, and my boys come out of the inn, they’re all worried because their chief is sitting outside shirtless in the cold, glaring at the sky, right? When they get why I’m brooding they start _awww_ ’ing, and next thing I know they’re all piling onto me, hugging me, and suddenly the sun is warm again.”

Silence falls onto the tent, and outside, a cricket chirps. Dorian feels something stir in his chest, and thinks of hugging Felix, and how warmth settles deep in his bones and limbs when he does in a way that the sun rays in the north or south of Thedas could never compare.

“I’m sorry, my story was lame,” Bull mutters, shuffling uncomfortably, and Dorian turns on his side to face him.

“No, I think it was a great story,” he says, head pillowed on his arm, and Bull looks at him, his expression hard to decipher. Dorian smiles. “Thank you for telling me.”

From that day forth, their tentative friendship grows. Every night, before nodding off, they exchange a few words; most times they’re too tired to talk about anything other than the day’s fighting, sharing suggestions on how to do better, and off to sleep they go. Other times, when the mood strikes, they repeat the experience of the other night, and share various stories of their life after they came to the south, but never anything before then. Dorian aches to learn more about the mysterious qunari, but he won’t pry. It’s like they have a casual understanding that neither will ask about their past, and thus, neither will speak about it either.

It doesn’t take long for Dorian to meet the man’s infamous mercenary team. He’d heard of a fellow countryman who’d been also staying at Haven’s camp, and they’re introduced at the first given opportunity; Lieutenant Cremisius Aclassi, also known as Krem, is a handsome man with _great_ arms, and although he seems weary of Dorian at first, when he discovers him to be Soporati and to have abandoned any and all pretense of nobility they instantly get along, wistfully reminiscing of the time when they lived in Tevinter and all the good stuff about it, like the heavily spiced food, the warm summers, and the plaza dancers. He reluctantly joins the rest of the mercenary group for drinks and stories one evening, and when Bull joins them later and spots Dorian, mingling amongst his crew like he belongs, he lifts a brow and looks confused yet pleasantly surprised, and soon he’s laughing and talking with the rest of the group. To an outsider, it’s like Dorian’s part of The Chargers and always has been, and Dorian honestly doesn’t mind it one bit.

 

\---

 

It is the day scheduled for the Herald to try and close the breach in the sky; Haven is bustling with energy, people running back and forth, preparing either for the worse or to celebrate the good news. The chantry is filled with people saying their prayers, the tavern bustling with cooks back and forth, the children kept at home to stay out of the way of the adults. Truly an atypical morning for the small village, but the general mood is one of cheerful optimism, so Dorian appreciates the change in pace after so many weeks of somber faces and dragging feet in the snow.

He’s hidden in his tent, carefully running a straight razor to shave his overgrown beard and polish the shape of his beloved mustache, when he hears someone knocking on one of the wooden beams outside.

“Yes?” He says, glancing to the side just as Bull peeks through the flaps.

“Hey. Grooming yourself for the big day, huh?”

Dorian grins, then turns his attention back to the mirror. “Evidently. If there is to have partying and celebration, then I have an obligation to look nothing less than my very best, don’t you agree?”

Bull hums. “Don’t know much about that. The most grooming I ever do is braiding my hair, and I do celebrations just fine.”

“If you do celebrations merely ‘just fine’, then I assure you, my friend, that you have been doing them all wrong.”

Bull snorts. “Well, even if I did agree with you, I’ll confess I never really learned how do much besides shaving and braiding. The Qun isn’t too big on stuff like creams and makeup, as I’m sure you know.”

Dorian hums absently as he swipes his razor through the last bits of stubble. He cleans it with a cloth and sets it aside as he turns to look at Bull again, this time a bit closer.

Bull’s dark hair is tied up in a bun, wrapped in a braid as is usual, but ite locks are opaque with dust and the strands look brittle and weak. He could do with a wash and a brush, not to mention a deep moisturizing treatment; Dorian quickly considers not saying anything, because he’s not sure if their tentative friendship is quite there yet, but his mouth is faster than his mind, and he jerks his head back in a silent invitation.

“Right. Come on in, then.”

Bull lifts a brow. “Uh. What?”

“Come in, you lout, before I change my mind.”

Bull hesitates, but enters Dorian’s tent, neatly closing the flaps behind him. Dorian motions for him to sit at a pillow by the foot of his sleep bag, and Bull goes, although he still looks suspicious. Dorian pretends he doesn’t notice, and fetches his wash basin and the vase full of water he’d brought with him to maybe have a bath after the night's festivities were over.

“What are you doing?” Bull asks when Dorian sets the basin and vase plus a pillow directly behind Bull’s back.

“Helping you groom.” He puts a hand on the hair bundled on his head, and raises a questioning brow. “That is, if you’re so inclined. May I?”

“Why? You don’t have to.”

“Maybe, but I’d like to.”

Bull shrugs. “If you _really_ want to,” he says, sounding unsure, and turns back around.

Dorian starts by undoing the bun and then the braid, then he tilts Bull’s head back so he can dip water over the hair and into the empty basin as he washes it, taking care not to get the man’s neck or back wet. He rubs the hair in his hands, massaging the roots and scalp with the tip of his fingers, frowning at the grime he washes away with the very same same soap he uses for his own hair. Once he’s done and the hair in his palm is nicely clean and dripping wet, he applies a butter cream and brushes it, slowly and surely, until the knots are gone and all that’s left behind is a beautiful, coarse and curly hair that goes down to Bull’s hips. Dorian imagines what it’d be like using magic to dry the hair; he remembers watching his mother do it, humming on her wooden stool as the hair evaporated, little by little with each pass of her brush, and the memory brings a bittersweet taste to his mouth. He separates the still wet hair into three parts and plaids it into a tight braid, tying the ends with the hair tie he had on before Dorian started.

“There,” Dorian says once he’s finished, running his hand gently through its length and appraising his handiwork. “You have beautiful hair.”

“Thank you,” Bull says, pulling the braid towards his chest and examining Dorian’s work. “It looks nice, ‘Vint. I’m impressed.”

“Please, it was nothing. Always happy to be of assistance and all that.”

Bull hums, rubbing his thumb and forefinger over the tuft of hair at the tip of the braid, and Dorian stays where he is, looking at the back of Bull’s head, paying close attention as Bull silently reminisces.

“Copper for your thoughts?” Dorian asks, voice low and tentative. Bull stays silent for another long stretch, braid over his palm, fingers tracing the plaited hair.

“It’s nothing,” he says, and when Dorian thinks that might be it and he won't elaborate any further, just as they’ve always done during their few times sharing a tent, Bull takes a long, deep breath and powers on. “It’s just... the last time someone else braided my hair like this I was in Seheron, leading my own troop. It’s been nearly ten years... damn. Hadn’t really thought about how long it’s been since then before now.”

Dorian hums. “Were they a friend of yours?”

“Yes,” Bull answers right away, but hesitates. “And also no. We were close, but having actual friends in Seheron wasn’t the best idea for reasons you can probably imagine. He was part of my troop. Wasn’t exactly my second in command, but he was the one I ended up training to take over when... when I eventually left. I don’t know if he’s dead or alive, and I’ll probably never find out.”

ĺDorian lowers his head.

“I’m sorry.”

Bull shakes his head, stops almost as if wanting to say something else, but instead he gets to his feet, accepting Dorian’s help when the knee proves to be acting up. When he looks down at Dorian, hands to forearms, his eyes are soft, and his lips and chin are hidden behind the collar. Like this, with the orange glow of the lanterns inside Dorian’s tent shining over his face and heightening his looks, he looks almost ethereal, and Dorian thinks, maybe not for the first time but definitely for the first time that actually matters, that Bull is truly a very handsome man.

“You better finish changing soon, or people will star wondering where the heart of the party is.”

Dorian grins, recognizing a change of subject when he sees one, and hides the shiver that the low, rumbly voice gives him, hoping he hasn’t been caught staring too hard.

“Wouldn’t want my admirers to be kept waiting.”

With a low chuckle, Bull unties the bow he’d made with such care, and promptly walks out of the tent, his braid swinging freely behind him.

It occurs to him only several minutes later, after he’s finished changing into one of his best outfits - courtesy of Felix and Gereon, who brought it to him when they knew they were to meet again - and is just applying the last touches to the kohl around his eyes, that Bull never did say why he stopped by in the first place.

 

\---

 

Dorian barely remembers the events that lead to this moment.

This moment being himself, sitting just inside Haven’s chantry, wearing his leathers instead of his fancy robes, a deep bleeding wound under his jaw and the bag with his personal belongings hanging from his shoulder. He looks around; Threnn and Seggrit are holding onto each other, Threnn whispering into Seggrit’s ear to calm him down, and close by, Flissa, Lysette, Adan and Minaeve are all huddled together in silence, seemingly in a prayer. They were the last townsfolk to be brought into the chantry after the templars broke through Cullen’s army and managed to siege Haven and bring it down to its knees like it was nothing. Dorian hears something about an underground tunnel, a sound escape plan Chancellor Roderick offers, a way to abandon Haven safely, and all he can think is of the snow mountains around the village and the several miles of nothingness that awaits beyond, and how many people amongst them can make through the trek on foot to Maker-knows-where. How many will perish before they make it to safety. How will _he_ make it, if the slightest cold breeze makes him shiver and clash his teeth until his jaw throbs with the pain. nk

His mind goes to Felix, to Gereon and Livia, the three of them back in Tevinter, dealing with this mess in their own way, and wonders what he would say to them if he could talk to them right about now. _Goodbye_ doesn’t feel right, and _I love you_ feels too heavy, despite being true. Maybe we wouldn’t say anything, and let his silence speak for itself, just as the chantry’s loud silence speaks for everyone.

When he looks up again, the villagers have all left. The Herald’s inner circle are the only ones left, waiting for the party that went back with Iloren to figure out the second trebuchet to return. But when Solas, Sera and Blackwall open the Chantry doors, Iloren nowhere to be seen, the severity of the situation hits them.

“There is an avalanche coming. We must leave without her,” Solas says, almost sounding choked up, Blackwall looking to the floor with a deep frown, and Sera spits out a curse, stalking past them with heavy feet and swinging arms. Cassandra looks somber for a second, before recomposing herself and nodding.

“Move out!” She shouts, commanding and resolute, and Dorian struggles to get to his feet, shivering with the cold, which he is thankful for the first time, since it covers for his nerves, hides how overwhelmed he feels. Outside, the unmistakable sound of collapsing snow rumbles closer and closer, and he hurries to the tunnel entrance along with everyone else, praying that his wobbly legs can carry him fast enough.

Bull comes right behind him, shutting the door once everyone’s through, and sets a hand on Dorian’s shoulder.

“You alright, big guy?” He asks, low enough so that only Dorian can hear, and Dorian chuckles drily, no humor behind it.

“Just fine. Not used to so many things happening all at once, is all.”

Bull hums. “That I get. No time for lagging behind though. We have to keep moving.”

Dorian nods, hugs his bag closer to his body, thinking back to the previous hour, when there was music and food and carefreeness of a kind he hadn’t participated in since he was back at his old home, at the slave’s quarters, during their evenings of parties and fun. How quickly the nostalgia was broken by the announcement of incoming enemy troops, how the moods soured and the soldiers, like Dorian, rushed to change and prepare for the unknown threat making its way towards them.

And not only did the threat arrive, it also ruined for good everything they’d built from scratch, just that easily.

The trek through the mountains and snow is as arduous as Dorian imagined. The horses carry supplies and older people who cannot walk too far, the sheep bleat, the children cry, and Dorian trudges slowly through the snow. Bull lags behind, everyone, taking the rear, occasionally placing an encouraging hand on Dorian’s shoulder whenever he is obviously struggling, but he never pushes, never coaxes. Dorian looks up every time, his eyes falling onto Bull’s braid, thrown over his shoulder and settled neatly atop his right pectoral, and allows the hand to gently help him with the climb.

At night they make camp at an open field, melting away snow until a beaten, muddy ground is revealed, cutting down trees to make structures, and laying down bedrolls for the healers to treat the sick and the exhausted. Dorian collapses as soon as his tent is up; he and Bull are sharing, since not all tents were saved from the village, and thus everyone needs to compromise.

He shivers atop his bedroll, and pretends not to notice Bull watching him.

“Don’t you want to come outside? They’re lighting fires.”

Dorian huffs. “And deal with mud on top of all the snow I got up my boots? No, thank you. I’d rather stay here and shiver until I’m warm rather than have to endure yet another freezing gust of wind.”

Bull doesn’t respond, and after several minutes of silence, when Dorian is feeling awkward for being so short and rude and is trying to come up with a good enough apology, Bull ducks out of the tent, closing it tightly behind him. _Good_ , Dorian thinks bitterly. _Leave me be._

However, not too long later Bull reappears, shuffling and grunting as he struggles with something Dorian doesn’t bother himself with, pretending to be asleep. The pretense is broken as soon as he hears a heavy object fall down onto the floor merely a couple of feet from his bedroll, making him jump, startled. He sits up and turns around.

Bull is dragging a pile of rocks into the tent. Big rocks, the biggest one about as wide and tall as Bull’s chest. Dorian widens his eyes.

“What in the Maker’s name do you think you’re doing?!” He exclaims, alarmed, as Bull ties the knot back on the tent’s flaps. Wordlessly, he moves to the pile of rocks, and sets his hand atop the bigger one in the middle. Dorian watches with awe as the rock slowly begins to glow red, and almost immediately the tent grows warmer. He sighs out with relief.

“Thank you. You... you didn’t have to do that.”

Bull shrugs. “Maybe. But I wanted to.” He looks at Dorian sideways, and grins. “And you’re right. The cold wind does suck.”

That gets a startled laugh out of Dorian, and he shakes his head, moving closer to the rocks to warm his hands.

Dorian’s later woken by Bull shaking him by the shoulder; the Herald’s been found. Somehow, she survived the avalanche, and trekked on her own through the snow until she reached their group. They step out of the tent, but Iloren is sleeping, healers tending to her fatigue, mother Giselle watching over her.

An emergency meeting with the Herald’s advisors is put together hastily, right in the middle of the camping grounds, lit by flickering candles that are set upon the snow. They discuss what to do now, that Haven is lost forever, and that the threat of the red lyrium corrupted templars and maybe even Corypheus himself are still hanging over everyone's heads. They need a base where they can receive resources to fight this battle, train their soldiers, rest and feed their people. As Dorian looks around to where they are, snowy hills and pine trees as far as the eye can see, he can’t think of where to go just as the advisors cannot. Eventually they disperse, Cassandra staring at her map like it has the answers to all their problems, Leliana hugging her knees close to her chest, Cullen and Josephine pacing back and forth in restless energy.

The spindly boy that warned them of the troops closes Chancellor Roderick’s eyes as he takes his last breath.

Sitting right outside his tent, sleep long chased away by the sensation of helplessness that he feels, Dorian puts his head on his knees, sighs heavily. Bull, wordlessly, puts a heavy yet comforting arm around his back and over his shoulders.

And somewhere, mother Giselle starts to sing.

 

\---

 

Skyhold looms on the horizon like a beacon of hope for the group traveling through the mountains.

Dorian is one of the many people to sigh in relief, eyes watering with emotion of finally, _finally_ getting a true and good look at the centuries old fortress hidden amongst snow-covered hills and mountains, a safe place for the small army fighting against Corypheus to finally put down roots. When Solas talked about the fortress, just before the group began their trek, it almost sounded too good to be actually true, and many people were skeptical it was actually real or that it was still standing, up until they saw it on the horizon.

It still takes them several hours to arrive at the front gates, the sun slowly going down as people try and find intact sconces to lit up the way. Soon enough the castle’s main courtyard is sweeped of snow and dirt, camp is set up, and although there is still a lot of work to be done due to centuries of abandonment leaving the structures in near ruins, Dorian is amazed at how well-conserved most of it all is, all things considered.

Bull places a hand at the stone walls, frowning.

“It’s magic,” he says, and Dorian lifts a brow.

“Come again?”

“Old magic. The fortress’ dripping with it. You know how your people build your cities with magic? This is the same thing, but it’s not really Tevinter magic. I can’t place what kind it is.”

“Hmm.” Dorian places his hand on the wall, mimicking Bull, and if he focuses he can truly feel some sort of energy, thrumming low inside the walls. If he were a mage he knows this sensation would be multiplied tenfold, and he’d be able to feel it in his bones, his veins. As it is, he’s practiced since he was young how to detect the presence of magic in things, and he blames his exhaustion for not noticing the heavy magic that weighs in the air around them. “You’re right. Maybe it’s elvhen? Although I spotted some pieces of architecture that definitely looked Tevinter.”

They both turn when commotion starts at the main courtyard. People have gathered at the bottom of the stairs that lead to the main halls of the castle, and atop the steps is Cassandra, Leliana, Josephine, Cullen, and Iloren, looking mildly uncomfortable as a sword is offered to her. Words are exchanged, and although from where they stand it’s hard to make out that they’re saying, it’s obvious that they’re trying to convince Iloren to take the role as decision maker, and after much and forth, she finally agrees, lifting the sword in the air with a few key words, one in particular standing out for Dorian:

Inquisition.

He lifts a single brow as the crowd cheers, and next to him Bull shifts his weight to his right foot, crossing his arms.

“Inquisition, huh”, he says, and Dorian turns to him. “I guess that’s what the world needs right now after all, isn’t it. Someone to take the ropes and clean this shit. Give people hope.”

“It seems so,” Dorian says, sighing. Putting a name on the organization to make it official, to make them look serious instead of just a ragtag group of people trying to stop a war; make them look less like a child trying to fetch water with a sieve and more like a farmer collecting rain into a ceramic bowl. “I suppose we do need a proper name if we expect to get any further than where we’ve gotten so far.”

Bull hums. “I guess I can charge double for my me and my boys now, huh.”

Dorian scoffs, rolling his eyes dramatically and shoving Bull by the elbow. “You truly are a mercenary, aren’t you, you lout.”

Bull just grins at that, a slight upturn of his lips that shows a flash of teeth. Charming, casual, even maybe a bit flirty. Dorian looks away as he feels his cheeks warming up, and laughs, clapping along with the crowd.

It seems like the future promises much more to come; and, surprisingly, despite the rip in the sky, and the demons, and all the red lyrium corruption running rampant, he finds he’s looking forward to the days that are yet to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SO SORRY THIS TOOK ME SO LONG!!! so many things happened between when I finished the second chapter and started on this one, but fear not! I have no intention of dropping this fic, and I'm excited to share the beginning of Dorian and Bull's story together :D I hope you guys like this chapter just as much as I did
> 
> thank you for reading, as always! comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated as usual. my goal is to finish the fourth chapter by the end of april, so here's hoping I can manage! ; v ;


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